Love: The Only Mystery Worth Solving (Teen Lock Johnlock)
by gabrielstolethetardis
Summary: When 18-year-old John Watson moves to 221B Baker Street, London, England, he hardly expects to stay long. But then he meets Sherlock Holmes, a boy with extraordinary powers of deduction, and soon John and Sherlock are swept into a whirlwind of events that threaten to overturn their whole lives as they struggle with crime, questions, and the matter of their own hearts.
1. Chapter 1

John Watson stared out the front window of his car, watching the yellow lines zip past and disappear. He'd been driving through the night, and the sun was just beginning to rise, bathing the land in front of him in a soft golden light. In the distance, he could see the start of a massive city stretching on and on and upwards towards the sky as if trying to immerse themselves in the clouds.

John looked at the duffle bag sitting on the passenger side seat out of the corner of his eye. A brief image of black suits and white flowers flashed through his mind and he looked back quickly towards the city in the distance.

He hadn't even noticed when he'd passed out of Scotland and into England. He supposed that was a good thing; it would make it easier to blend in with other people.

London, however, was a different story. It was big, bigger than the small city he'd lived in in Scotland, and as John drove through the outskirts, watching the buildings get grander and taller, he felt a pang of worry in his chest.

What if he couldn't find the address? What if, even when he did find it, there was no one there and he was left on his own? John's hands shook against the steering wheel, and he gripped it tighter to regain control.

He'd be fine. He repeated those words in his mind as he looked down at his GPS, turning as it instructed, until he pulled up in front of a weathered blue door.

221b Baker Street. The rundown building stood adjacent to a small bakery, and as John stepped out of his car, his duffle bag slung over his shoulder, he could smell the scent of bread wafting out from the shop.

The brass doorknocker was hanging askew, so John rang the bell. He waited a few moments, rocking back and forth on his heels and looking up at the windows that overlooked the street. He thought he saw a flash of motion in one of the upper ones, but before he could look closer the door opened to reveal an older woman wearing a patterned dress and a warm smile.

"John!" she said, and John felt relief wash over him.

"Ms. Hudson," he replied. Ms. Hudson stepped to the side, and John walked past her into the entryway. Ms. Hudson shut the door with a bang behind him, and then turned and wrapped him in a tight hug.

"Oh John, I'm so glad you made it here safely," she said, releasing him. "You're much too young to have to drive all that way."

"I'm 18, Ms. Hudson," John laughed, but her words struck a pang of sadness in him. He suppressed it and forced a smile on his face. "I'm plenty old enough."

Ms. Hudson fell silent. "Yes, I suppose so," she said quietly.

John swallowed, and spoke quickly. "Thanks again for letting me stay here," he said, hefting his duffle bag more securely onto his shoulder.

"It's no trouble," Ms. Hudson said, starting up the rickety wooden stairs. John followed, glancing around at the faded wallpaper, curling at the edges. This was home now. John found himself comparing it to wide expanses of hills and a white clapboard country home tucked away between them, and coughed to release the tension in his throat.

"There's just one thing, John," Ms. Hudson said after a short pause. They'd reached the top of the stairs, and there was a door at the end of a short hallway, standing slightly ajar. "I only had one room available and, well…"

John frowned slightly. "Yes?"

All of a sudden, a loud banging sound erupted from the room in front of them, and John started slightly. There was a muffled curse, then silence.

John stepped forward and pushed open the door. It swung open to reveal a large living room, cluttered with chairs and papers and boxes, sunlight streaming in through a window on the opposite wall. On the floor next to one of the couches was a boy, wrapped in a blue blanket. As John watched, the boy groaned and rolled closer to the couch.

John turned and looked at Ms. Hudson, who was standing in the doorway. She had an apologetic look on her face. "I'm afraid you'll have to share."

John glanced over his shoulder at the boy, who was lying motionless on the ground. "Share?" he repeated. "With him?" He met Ms. Hudson's gaze. "Who is he?"

"He's—"

"Sherlock Holmes." The voice came from behind John, and he spun around to see the boy standing up, the blanket wrapped around him like a toga. He looked about John's age, with curly black hair that was rumpled in places and deep blue eyes that shone light in the sun. John expected him to extend one of his hands, but instead he said, "We're flatmates then?"

"Flatmates?" John echoed, still trying to process the boy who stood in front of him, who was there but not at the same time—he had a sort of manner about him that made him seem almost detached from the rest of the world.

Sherlock sighed. "Yes, flat mates." He looked past John at Ms. Hudson. "Is he always like this?"

Ms. Hudson sighed. "Be nice, Sherlock." She put a hand on John's shoulder, as if to reassure him, and then left the room, the door swinging shut behind him.

Sherlock was studying John. John edged around him and dropped his duffle bag next to the couch, and he was about to sit down when Sherlock spoke.

"How did they die?"

John stumbled and caught his balance just in time to stop himself from falling. Slowly, he turned around to see Sherlock watching him, his hands clasped behind his back and his sapphire eyes meeting John's. "Excuse me?" John managed.

"Your parents," Sherlock said, his voice flat, as if he wasn't asking John one of the most personal questions he could possibly ask. He crossed the room and sat in a patterned armchair opposite to the couch. "How did they die?"

John swallowed and sat down on the couch, his hands shaking slightly. He set them on his knees so the boy across from him, looking upon him with hard eyes, wouldn't see. "I hardly think that's any of your business," he said, his voice choked slightly.

Sherlock was silent. John cleared his throat. "Did Ms. Hudson tell you?" he asked. He dearly hoped she hadn't—she was a close family friend, and he didn't think she would tell information like that to any boy who happened to be living in her building—but he couldn't think of any other way Sherlock would have known.

"No."

John had taken a class once, back in his second year of high school, about solving crimes. He'd preferred medicine, but the class had had a certain allure to it. There had been one unit about people's ticks—ways to tell if they were lying. John knew almost every tick a person could have—shifty eyes, fidgeting hands, crossing and uncrossing of legs—and Sherlock was showing none of them. Either he was an exceptional liar, or he was telling the truth.

"How could you possibly know then?" John said after a moment.

"I didn't _know_," Sherlock said, steepling his fingers underneath his chin and leaning forward, setting his elbows on his knees and locking eyes with John. "I _noticed._"

John must have looked unconvinced, because Sherlock sighed. "It's obvious, isn't it? You're moving into Ms. Hudson's building, and she has no close family members, so therefore you're a friend. You're young, eighteen years old judging by your body structure, not yet moved out though you've graduated high school—simple, it's June and you're a boy of average intelligence so you wouldn't have skipped a grade or been held back, therefore just graduated. Your duffle bag is full, more things than you'd need if this were just a trip, so this is permanent—at least that's your intention. The way Ms. Hudson touched your shoulder before she left and how she behaved around you suggested she cares about you but is being very careful about what she does, possibly because you're mentally unstable, more likely because the instability is emotional. You've just graduated, not yet in college—going for medicine, judging by your Cambridge University duffle bag. Smart choice, by the way, if you can get in.

Sherlock had a gleam in his eyes that made him seem vibrant and alive. "So where are your parents? Not with you—only one car door slam and one pair of footsteps—and if they were at home or elsewhere Ms. Hudson would have asked you about them, but she didn't, and combining this with all the other elements leaves one most likely conclusion: your parents are recently deceased and you've come to live with Ms. Hudson because you have no other place to go." Sherlock put his hands on the sides of the armchair and leaned forward. "Do you see? I _noticed_."

_Amazing,_ John wanted to say. _Absolutely brilliant._ The boy in front of him could look at a person and know their plans for the future and the ghosts of their past, and that intrigued John to no end, but the praises got stuck in his throat. He swallowed, the room suddenly seeming too crowded and stuffy, and Sherlock's head cocked slightly, as if he was sensing John's discomfort. John prepared himself for more deductions, not sure if he was dreading or looking forward to them, when Sherlock sat back and closed his eyes. "Nice to meet you, John Watson," he said, his voice unreadable.

John opened his mouth and then closed it again. Then, he stood up and grabbed his wallet from his duffle bag and his keys from the table beside the door. John took a step out the door, then paused and looked back over his shoulder at Sherlock.

"Pleasure to meet you as well, Sherlock Holmes," he said quietly. When Sherlock didn't say anything, John left him sitting in the flat and used his GPS to locate the nearest grocery store.

John had no idea what kind of things Sherlock ate, so he bought a wide variety of items and left with enough food to last them at least a week or two. He assumed he'd be staying that long.

On the car ride back to the flat, John took the opportunity to study London, taking in the towering buildings and the people rushing about. A surge of emotions rushed through him as he remembered his father talking about London. "It's like the heart of England," he'd say, "with veins and arteries pumping people in and out." At the time, John had longed to see the city his father spoke so fondly of. Now, he wished he'd never had to come.

As John parked in front of 221B and carried the groceries up to the door, he noticed that somebody had straightened the doorknocker. John balanced one of the bags against his hip and opened the door, kicking it closed behind him. As he ascended the stairs, he could hear voices from above—Sherlock's and another boy's. John paused outside the door to the flat, debating whether or not to enter, before slowly turning the handle.

The door swung open to reveal two boys standing in the center of the flat, facing one another. John could see Sherlock's face over the strange boy's shoulder, his mouth turned downwards. "Well I don't care what the bloody Scotland Yard thinks, do I Mycroft?" he snapped.

The boy, who must have been Mycroft, sighed heavily. "No, Sherlock, but you should try and be a bit more cooperative with them, since they can't pick up a bit of evidence if it was sitting on their feet." He paused, and then turned around sharply to face John. He had dark eyes and darker hair and a formality in the way he held himself, like he knew himself to be above the rest of the world and had long since accepted that fact. He was wearing a dark blue, tailored suit and he looked to be a few years older than Sherlock. John wasn't quite sure if he was supposed to great him, so he settled for a small smile in his direction that faltered and died when it was unrequited.

"Who is this?" Mycroft asked, not looking at Sherlock. He was still studying John, much in the same way Sherlock had when John had first stepped into the flat. "Did he follow you home?"

"Hello," John said, stepping forward and pausing a moment before setting the groceries on the floor and extending a hand to Mycroft. "I'm John, John Watson. I'm Sherlock's new… flat mate."

Mycroft stared at John's hand for a few moments before taking it and shaking it once. "Nice to meet you John. Mycroft Holmes."

John looked first at Mycroft, who had released John's hand immediately after shaking, and then at Sherlock, who had sat down onto one of the sagging couches and had his fingers to his temples. "So you two are related then?" he said.

"Brothers," Mycroft said, but before he could say anything else Sherlock spoke.

"Yes, brothers. Now, brother mine, tell Scotland Yard that their 'murderer' is really a grave robber who has dug 3 graves already and is going to dig a fourth in… 24 hours, and to stop bothering me with their boring problems!"

Mycroft gave Sherlock a look that bordered on exasperation. "Lestrade's offer still holds, little brother."

Sherlock stood up and walked over towards the door. "What was I going to say…? Oh, yes. Goodbye." He held open the door and gestured towards the opening.

Mycroft gave Sherlock a withering look as he passed him. "You can't keep living off of Ms. Hudson forever, Sherlock."

Sherlock shut the door in Mycroft's face, effectively ending the conversation. He then walked back into the main area of the flat and sank down on an armchair. "Mycroft's always been the boring one," he said, curling his fingers around the arms of the chair. "'Oh, look at me, I'm 23 and already part of the British Government. I wear a suit, see?' It's rubbish." Sherlock looked at John, who was still standing in the same spot he'd begun. "You should put those away. The milk's already begun to warm."

John bit his lip. "Right." He carried the bags into the kitchen, leaving Sherlock sitting in his chair, staring off into the distance.

John knew next to nothing about Sherlock. He knew he had a brother named Mycroft, that Scotland Yard wanted him for something, and that he had the uncanny ability to see your life written in the way you looked and acted. Sherlock seemed to know everything about him, and John knew it should make him feel instable, but it sparked something inside of him, a sort of drive to get to know the boy who acted as if he was indifferent to the rest of the world.

Who was Sherlock Holmes?


	2. Chapter 2

John was scanning the job offers in the paper when Sherlock wandered into the living room the next morning wearing a dark blue robe. He walked right past John and sank down on the couch, staring off into the distance.

"Not a morning person?" John said, glancing at his watch, which read 10:15 AM. When he didn't get a response from Sherlock he looked over at the other boy, who had his fingers steepled underneath his chin and had his gaze fixed on the opposite wall. "Sherlock?"

"There's an apprenticeship open at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It's not far from here," Sherlock said, ignoring John's question.

John glanced down at the paper in his hands, and then reached over the side of his armchair and retrieved his laptop from the floor beside him. He popped the top open, and as he was typing 'St. Bartholomew's Hospital' into the search bar he said, "Do you have a job?"

"No."

John looked up from his screen, frowning slightly at Sherlock. "Why?" he asked.

"Boring," Sherlock said, drawing out the 'o'. "They're all so boring."

John clicked on the link for St. Bartholomew's website. "What about Scotland Yard?" he asked, squinting at the hospital's hours. "Your brother said yesterday that they had a position open for you if you wanted to take it."

"The 'detectives' of Scotland Yard," Sherlock said, his voice scornful. "Tripping over their own crime scenes."

John sighed. "All right, fine." He folded his laptop and stood up, setting the computer on the side table. "I'm going to St. Bartholomew's Hospital to ask about that apprenticeship. Hopefully they don't require a medical degree."

John felt a pang of sadness when he thought of medical school. Through high school, when he'd realized he had a passion for medicine, he'd taken every course available and applied for numerous scholarships, but despite all his hard work he'd graduated with barely £10,000 in scholarships—not enough for a compete medicinal degree. His parents, though they barely had any money to spare as it was, had promised to try and salvage enough money to send him to university.

Now they were gone.

John swallowed the lump that rose in his throat and left the flat before he could do anything embarrassing. It was only once he was in his car and pulling away from 221B Baker Street that he lost his hold on his emotions and hot tears spilled down his cheeks, leaving the taste of salt in John's mouth.

By the time he reached St. Bartholomew's Hospital John had wiped away all signs of his earlier distress and had filled the space left behind with a harsh determination. He slammed the car door behind him and walked briskly up to the clear double doors. Through them he could see a white-painted interior and a wooden counter, made distorted by the glass.

John pulled open one of the doors and slipped inside. The door shut behind him with a gust of air and a soft whooshing sound, and the young girl standing behind the counter looked up with an automatic smile.

"Hello, welcome to St. Bartholomew's Hospital," she said as John approached the counter. "How may I help you?"

"I heard you had an apprenticeship open here?" John said, sounding slightly unsure. "I was wondering if I could apply."

The girl—who looked to be just a bit older than John—paused a moment before nodding. "Sure, I'll get the paperwork." She ducked momentarily below the counter, emerging a few moments later with a small packet of papers. "Fill these out please," she instructed, handing the stack to John

John took one of the pens from a basket on the counter and moved over to the small reception area, spending the next ten minutes filling out the forms and listening to the sounds of people exiting and entering the hospital, their shoes clicking on the polished tiles.

John signed the last piece of paper, standing up and approaching the girl behind the counter again. He handed the papers over. When she took them, he hesitated a moment, and then cautiously asked, "For this apprenticeship… would I need any sort of medical degree?"

There must have been something almost pleading in his voice, because the girl bit her lip before responding. "Well, the hospital normally requires a couple years of medical school before they hire anybody into a position."

John felt like somebody had kicked him in the stomach. "Oh." He nodded. "Well, then, I suppose I filled those out for nothing." He laughed shortly. "I'm sorry for wasting your time."

"Listen, um…" She looked down at the forms. "…John, I wish I could help you but I don't make the rules. Maybe if you talked to management?"

John was going to tell her not to worry about it—he thought that the bakery down the street from his flat had a hiring sign outside of it—when the phone rang. The girl gave John an apologetic look before picking up the phone mid-ring.

"St. Bartholomew's Hospital, how may I help you?" she asked. John turned away from the desk and was halfway to the door when he heard the girl say, "Sherlock, _no_." John looked over his shoulder at the girl, whose eyebrows were creased tightly. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I _can't_. He won't allow it." There was another pause, and the girl's eyes flicked towards John. "You can't keep calling in favors." Another brief silence. "Yes, yes I _know_, but this is too much."

John slowly walked back to the counter. The girl behind the counter shifted slightly and said, "OK, fine. I'll ask. But this is the last time!" The girl took the phone from her ear and closed her eyes for a moment before setting it back into the receiver.

John wasn't sure whether or not to inquire about the phone call, so he waited to see what the girl would do. She pivoted slightly, looking at John briefly. "Stay here," she said finally before turning and walking around the desk and into the reception area, disappearing down one of the halls branching off of the main area.

John waited a couple of minutes standing next to the desk before crossing the room and sinking down into one of the black plush waiting chairs, tapping his fingers nervously on the armrest.

That had been Sherlock on the phone. John told himself it was a coincidence that his new flatmate, who had suggested the job to him in the first place probably knowing full well he didn't have a college education, had called at that precise moment about some sort of favor, but it didn't seem very coincidental at all.

Two people came around the corner—a tall man with an air of importance surrounding him and the girl from behind the reception desk, wringing her hands nervously in front of her—and headed straight towards John. He stood up immediately, his head high. This must be management, then, or at least a part of it. They stopped in front of John, and John was momentarily glad that the hospital seemed to be so empty at the moment. If he was to be humiliated, at least it would be a small crowd. John felt as if the man's gaze was picking him apart, and he resisted the urge to fidget.

"John Watson?" the man said, and John gave him a brisk nod. "Sherlock Holmes has asked that we give you the apprenticeship open here at the hospital."

John swallowed his surprise. Sherlock, whom he'd just met yesterday and knew next to nothing about, was calling in favors for him? "And Molly has told me that you have no prior medical schooling," the man continued. The girl next to him—Molly—flushed slightly and looked at the ground. "Clearly you are not qualified for this job."

John felt a hope he didn't know had been rising inside of him come crashing down, shattering into a million tiny little pieces. He tried not to let it show on his face as he prepared to apologize to the man and make a hasty departure, but the man's next words stopped him.

"However, I owe Sherlock a significant favor, and so I've made the decision to give you the apprenticeship for 6 months. If, by the end of 6 months you've proved to be a valuable assistant here, we can consider a more permanent job—although if you ever plan on being an actual doctor here you will need a degree in medicine."

John, who had been listening in a sort of awe-struck trance, snapped out of it. "Yes, of course. Thank you so much!" Without thinking, John extended his hand to the man, and after a short pause the man took his hand and shook it firmly.

Without another word, the man turned and walked away, disappearing back down the hallway. Molly had a smile stretched across her face. "You'll start the day after tomorrow, then," she said. "Mornings from 8:00 to noon, probably."

"Thank you, Molly." Molly nodded. John, for the second time today, made to leave the hospital, but Molly stopped him.

"Just one more thing, John!" she called, and John paused, looking over his shoulder. Molly had an odd expression on her face. "How do you know Sherlock? I've never seen you with him before."

"I just moved here," John said. "I'm his flatmate."

Molly's forehead creased slightly. "Sherlock's not the type to get a flatmate."

"Neither am I," John said, giving Molly a small smile before stepping out into the warm summer air.

* * *

><p>When John arrived back at the flat, just before noon, he was surprised to find it empty. "He's gone out, dear," Ms. Hudson called from his room. "I wouldn't wait up—he might not be back for hours yet."<p>

"OK," John responded, waiting for a moment to see if Ms. Hudson was going to say anything else before swinging the door shut and leaning back against it for a moment, the silence in the flat enveloping him. Dust motes were floating in a ray of sunshine peeking in through a window half-covered by a worn purple curtain, and as John looked at the room—really looked—he saw not the boxes cluttering every corner or the wallpaper, peeling at the corners, but the armchair he already had begun to think of as his and Sherlock's robe, draped across the bed haphazardly.

This was _his._ This place, the people who lived in it and around it—Sherlock, Ms. Hudson—were a part of him now. John supposed it was ridiculous to have become attached so quickly—he'd only been here a day and half, after all—but he couldn't help thinking of 221B as home.

Did that make Ms. Hudson and Sherlock family?

John closed his eyes and slid down the door until he was sitting on the scuffed carpet. He put his head in his hands and made a strangled noise deep in his throat.

No. He might have accepted the flat as home, but nobody could step in and become his family. His mother's smile as she told him stories of faraway lands when he was little, his father setting him behind the wheel of a car for the first time and helping him navigate the rough country roads… nothing could become like that.

Something broke inside of John, and his hands became slick with salty tears as his body shook with sobs, each tremor fracturing him more and more until it felt as if there was nothing left to break. His breath came in gasps as he brought his hands down and hugged his knees against his chest, every memory of his parents causing a sharp spike of pain.

John pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, hard, in an effort to force the memories from his mind, but it was no use. Every detail stood out painstakingly clear in his mind.

And then, inevitably, John remembered the funeral.

It had been sunny. The sky had been unmarked with clouds, and the slightest breeze blew John's hair back from his forehead as he'd stood in the small graveyard, a crowd of black surrounding him.

It was too bright, he'd thought. What right did the sun have to shine when there was so much darkness below? Despite the heat, however, he'd been cold, numb to the bone, the voices consoling him muffled to his ears.

"John Watson?" the pastor had said, repeated it four times until someone had touched John on the arm and made him look up with glassy eyes, not quite seeing the faces in front of him. "Would you like to say some words for your parents?"

John had nodded, slowly, and then had walked through the crowd towards the coffins, suspended above two rectangular holes in the ground. They had parted for him, everybody giving him sympathetic looks, but he'd hardly noticed. The only thing he'd been able to see were the polished black surfaces of the coffins. They'd filled his vision, reflecting back the image of a young man that John hardly recognized as himself wearing a starched black suit and a blank expression.

John had stopped just in front of them. He hadn't said anything for a very long moment, and people had begun to stir restlessly behind him but he hadn't cared. His world had narrowed until it was just he, he and the coffins. He'd stretched a hand out and laid it tenderly on the one closest to him, feeling the polished surface slide underneath his fingers.

"Mom," he'd whispered, so softly he could barely hear himself. "Dad." He'd stopped and cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the suffocating feeling that had risen within him, before continuing. "Do you remember that time when I was 8 and I knocked on your door in the middle of the night because I'd had a nightmare? I'd dreamt that you were gone and I was all alone, and you had both knelt by my side and promised me that you weren't going anywhere, you'd be with me always?" John had paused for a moment, biting his lip to keep the tears that were threatening to come spilling out inside. "You broke your promise. You said you wouldn't leave, and now you're gone, and I can't stand the thought of you being…"

John had swallowed sharply, feeling eyes on him, before speaking again. "You did so much for me. Whenever I was about to give up on something, you stepped in and you helped me get through it. You took the impossible and made it _possible_."

John had taken his hand off the coffin and had let it drop limply to his side. "One more miracle," he'd said hoarsely. "Just one more miracle, please. Stop being dead." John had felt his voice catch in his throat. "Please, _please_, don't be dead!" He'd dropped to his knees, not caring if he dirtied his suit, and set his forehead on the coffin. He'd expected the tears to come then, but he'd only said, softly, "I need you."

John wasn't sure how long he sat curled up on the floor of his flat, immersed in the memories of his past, but when he finally looked up, his eyes red and raw, light was no longer filtering in through the window. The faint sound of traffic and people passing on the streets leaked in through the walls, but it wasn't loud enough to drown out the sound of John's heart, beating in his chest.

With one last rattling breath, John picked himself up off the ground and dusted himself off. Then, he headed towards the bathroom to wash away the memories.


	3. Chapter 3

An uneventful week passed. The temperature had stalled at the mid-seventies, and London was going through an unusual dry spell, but the weathermen were calling for rain later in the week. John worked at St. Bart's in the mornings, sorting papers and performing small tasks for Molly and other people. He enjoyed spending time with Molly—they talked about themselves and work and the city itself. She'd grown up in London, and on his third day of work she'd told him with a small smile that it was where she planned to stay. "Some people," she'd said, "grow up and leave. They go to America, or down to France, or into the country—either the city's too busy or not busy enough."

John wasn't sure what type he was yet. He loved the country, the way he could lie outside at night and stare up at the stars without the lights blocking them out or hear the crickets chirping instead of car tires running across pavement. However, there was something about a city like London that drew him in—he just didn't know what it was yet.

And then there was Sherlock. The more time John spent around his flatmate, the more enthralled he was by him. Sherlock walked around with an air of mystery around him, so it seemed to John. He would be gone for hours on end, and when John asked him once where he'd been he'd simply said, "Out." Once, he'd come home at two o'clock in the morning, banging around the flat, and John had had to bite his lip to stop himself from saying anything.

Sunday rolled around—John's day off—and he woke up late, opening his eyes to harsh sunlight and a loud bang.

Squinting, John pulled a tee-shirt and a pair of jeans on and shuffled out of his bedroom. "Sherlock?" he called, his voice husky. "Is that you—?" He entered the living room and came to an abrupt halt, his words trailing off.

Sherlock was sitting with his legs over the side of one of the arms of an armchair, pointing a pistol at a yellow smiley face painted on the wall. He pulled the trigger, and John covered his ears as another gunshot rang through the flat.

"Good morning, John," Sherlock said, and John dropped his hands.

"What the hell are you doing?" John demanded.

Sherlock sighed. "Passing the time."

"_Passing the time?_" John repeated, shaking his head.

"There's nothing interesting going on," Sherlock said, preparing to shoot the wall again.

"Sherlock, stop!" John shouted, and Sherlock rolled his eyes, lowering the gun. "You can't keep shooting the wall." He paused for a moment. "Where did you even get the gun?"

"Picked it off of Lestrade."

John opened his mouth, not entirely sure what to say but knowing he had to say _something_, but he was spared the trouble by the sound of a phone ringing.

John waited a moment. When Sherlock made no move to go for the phone, he said, "Isn't that your phone?"

"Yes."

"Aren't you going to answer it?"

"No."

John sighed, and then reached forward and took the cellphone from where it sat on the side table. He flipped it open and held it up to his ear. "Hello?"

"I'd like to speak to my brother, John," a familiar voice said.

"Hold on a moment." John took the phone from his ear and extended it towards Sherlock. "It's Mycroft. He wants to talk to you."

Sherlock, with a look of annoyance, snatched the phone from John's hand. "What is it, Mycroft?" he snapped.

John sat down on the couch and pulled out his computer. As he waited for it to log in, he heard Sherlock say, "Really? Fascinating." John looked over to see Sherlock leaning forward in his chair, his eyes bright. "You said 3 bodies?" John's eyes widened. Sherlock stood suddenly, a smile stretched across his face. "I'll be there shortly." He snapped the phone shut and clapped his hands together, a laugh escaping his lips. "Yes!" he exclaimed, putting the phone in his pocket. "Oh, it's Christmas!"

John stood as well, setting his computer on the couch. "What's happened?" he asked. "What's this about bodies?"

"A case, John!" Sherlock said, crossing the room swiftly and opening the door. "Finally, something exciting is happening!" He swept out of the flat, the door slamming shut behind him.

John stood in the middle of the room for a moment before walking into the kitchen. He took a glass out of the cupboard and was in the midst of filling it with water when a voice behind him said, "You're training to become a doctor."

John swung around to see Sherlock standing in the kitchen entrance. "Yeah," he said slowly, setting the glass down.

"You're going to examine a lot of bodies as a doctor," Sherlock continued. "Probably more than you'd like."

John nodded. "I suppose so."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Want to start now?"

John considered Sherlock's offer. "Yeah, okay."

Sherlock drove, weaving the car through traffic all the way to St. Bart's. When they arrived, Sherlock parked in a side parking lot and together, he and John entered the building. A man who looked to be in his early twenties was waiting for them in the lobby. He had dirty blonde hair and brown eyes that at the moment were locked on Sherlock.

"Hello Lestrade," Sherlock said.

"I think you're going to want to see this," was all Lestrade said, leading them to the end of a hallway and down a set of stairs to the basement.

As they walked, John leaned over slightly towards Sherlock. "Why exactly are we here, Sherlock? The police don't call ordinary people in to examine bodies."

"You're exactly right, John," Sherlock said as they entered a door labeled 'Morgue'. "They _don't_ bring in ordinary people."

Lestrade flicked a light switch, illuminating the room with a harsh white light. He approached a wall composed of metal doors and unlatched one of them, pulling out a long table. On the table, sickly pale, was the body of a young man.

John sucked in a breath. There wasn't a single mark on the whole body except for a number, carved into the man's chest: 2.

"There're more," Lestrade said, turning and pulling out two more bodies, another man and a woman. Each body had a number on their chest.

Sherlock read them aloud. "Two two one."

"Two two one," John repeated. "As in…"

"221B," Sherlock said, moving closer to one of the bodies and scanning it quickly. "No other markings." He looked at Lestrade. "Poisoned?"

Lestrade shook his head. "The toxicology report came up empty. That's one of the reasons we called you. The other's obvious."

"Is somebody targeting us?" John asked after a moment, his voice coming out stronger than he thought it would. After the initial shock, he found that he could look at the three bodies laid out in front of him objectively and with a clear head. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that these weren't the first dead bodies he'd seen.

"It looks like it," Lestrade said as John thrust the thought out of his head quickly, focusing instead on the situation at hand. "Somebody who's not afraid to kill to get his or her point across."

"It's not just about the numbers," Sherlock said, and Lestrade and John both turned to see him straighten, brushing his hands down the front of his white dress shirt. "Whoever killed these people didn't just choose his victims at random—he would have a reason, a purpose, just like he had a reason to give us those numbers." Sherlock pointed at the woman. "Her. Mid-thirties, desk job—probably a secretary—with 2 children. Do we have a name?" He looked at Lestrade, whose expression hadn't changed with Sherlock's deduction.

"Stephanie Kildring," he said. "She worked as a secretary at Bizco."

"Bizco," John repeated. "The news company?"

Sherlock gave John a tired look. "Yes, John."

"He's Kyle Hampton from Presser Bank, and he's Isaac Richter from HP Insurance," Lestrade said, pointing at the two male bodies. "I ran checks and double checks—there seems to be no connection between these three murders. They didn't know each other inside or outside of work, and the companies don't collaborate. I would say that maybe the murder's targeting major corporations but—"

"—but what purpose would murdering a secretary serve," Sherlock finished, steepling his fingers under his chin. "What purpose indeed."

Sherlock and Lestrade continued making theories, but John's heartbeat thumped so loudly in his ears everything around him was drowned out. Bizco, Presser Bank, HP Insurance…

"I know the connection," he said suddenly, his voice sounding muffled to his own ears. Sherlock cut off mid-sentence and looked sideways at John.

"What?" he said, a small hint of surprise coloring his voice.

"There _is_ a connection," John said, his mouth dry. When Sherlock raised an eyebrow, John shrugged weakly. "It's me."

Lestrade frowned. "What do you mean it's you?"

"I mean," John said slowly, feeling the world start to spin around him, "that my family subscribed to Bizco news, had our money held in the Presser Bank system, and used HP Insurance." He felt slightly dizzy, as if the ground had begun to turn under his feet. Suddenly, he didn't see the bodies of Isaac and Stephanie and Kyle; he saw the faces of his parents, his mother's kind eyes closed and his father's deep, rich voice forever silent. He had to dig his nails into his palms to push the wave of grief threatening to emerge back into the recesses of his mind. He would not cry in front of these people. He would not break down in front of Sherlock.

Lestrade crossed his arms and glanced at Sherlock. "Could be a coincidence."

"There are no coincidences," Sherlock said. "John's parents, who have connections with all three places, turn up dead, and then these three murders with the numbers 221 carved into their chests? John is right—he is the connection."

"You think my parents have something to do with this?" John said, his voice coming out too loud. Even as the words left his mouth he knew that Sherlock was right, of course; it couldn't be a coincidence.

"Unless they both died from natural causes."

John looked away, focusing on the top left corner of the room. "No," he said quietly. "They didn't."

"Then Sherlock's right," Lestrade cut in. "I'm sorry John."

John just shook his head. "What do we do?" was all he said.

"We solve the case," Sherlock said. He gave John a half-smile that made his eyes light up. "The game is on."


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock had files spread all over the table in the living room, leaving no room for John to set his cup of tea.

With a sigh, John set his tea on the floor and leaned back in the armchair, tapping his fingers on his knee. For the past half-hour, Sherlock had been pouring over the murder files, muttering under his breath from time to time. "What I don't understand is _why them?_" Sherlock said now, lifting some papers and looking under them like the answer might be hidden somewhere on the blank bottoms of the pages. "A secretary, a bank teller, and a financial adviser, none of them significant parts of their companies." He looked at John. "Did your parents have any connections with these specific people?"

John shook his head. "Not that I know of."

Sherlock dropped the file with a sigh of frustration and stood up. "Get out," he said suddenly.

John frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Go to another room or something," Sherlock said with a dismissive wave of his long, slender fingers. "I need to go to my mind palace."

John stared at the other boy for a moment before shaking his head and exiting the flat. "Right," he muttered to himself. "Your mind palace."

John had been living with Sherlock for a week, and though he had learned very little about his flatmate, he knew that he'd never met anybody like Sherlock before. He was detached, distant, with a mind John had never seen the likes of in his life—he hardly seemed 18. John wondered if Sherlock was always like that, or if underneath his hard outer shell there was a boy inside who was emotional and fragile—and if there was, how could John unlock this person?

"John, dear!" a frail voice called from the side, tearing John from his ponderings. He turned to see Ms. Hudson standing in her doorway, a large smile spread across her lips. "I haven't spoken to you since you arrived."

John immediately felt bad. Caught up in a whirlwind of work and Sherlock and murder, he'd completely forgotten about Ms. Hudson, kind as she was to let him stay here in the first place. "I am so sorry," he apologized. "I'm ashamed to say I'd forgotten all about you."

"Oh, that's quite all right, dear," Ms. Hudson said with a chuckle. "I know it's hectic, what with getting a job and all the adventures I'm sure Sherlock's dragged you on. He is a flighty one."

"Actually," John said, glancing back at his flat, "I've got some free time now if you'd like to chat a bit."

"Oh, that'd be lovely," Ms. Hudson said cheerily, and she held the door open for John as he tore his gaze away from the other door and entered her flat.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes later, John had just finished catching Ms. Hudson up on the past week. He ended with explaining the previous events of the day, rushing over the fact of his parents' connection in the whole scheme so as not to get emotional.<p>

Ms. Hudson was silent as she processed the information, and John seized the opening to ask, "What can you tell me about Sherlock Holmes?"

"Sherlock?" Ms. Hudson repeated.

"Yes," John said, leaning forward slightly in his chair. "Every day I spend around him it seems I know less and less about him." He struggled for words for a moment, before finally shrugging his shoulders and looking at Ms. Hudson pleadingly. "It seems like if he can just look at me and know my life story, I should at least know a fraction of his."

Ms. Hudson gave John a sympathetic smile. "That's the thing about Sherlock—he's a mystery all in himself, just like those cases he loves solving."

"That's another thing," John said. "When we were at the hospital today, he seemed more alive than I'd ever seen him. Is that what he does all the time? Sit around and wait for the police to come to him for help solving murders and the sort, because he likes it?"

"It's the same way you enjoy working at the hospital," Ms. Hudson said. "You don't like seeing dead bodies and sick people—you love the people you help and the families you help them return to. Sherlock—though he may not admit it, mind you—doesn't work for the police to see those murder victims. He does it because it challenges him and makes him think. _I_ like to believe that, deep down, Sherlock does care about the people he helps by solving these cases, but most other people don't think the same." Ms. Hudson placed a steady hand on John's shoulder. "If you stay here long enough, John, I think you'll be able to see why I say that Sherlock does have a heart—he just guards it so well sometimes he himself forgets he has one."

John placed his hand on top of Ms. Hudson's and smiled. Just then, the door of Ms. Hudson's flat flew open with a bang, revealing Sherlock standing in the doorway. He had papers decorated with lines and lines of size-10 font grasped in one fist, which he shook in front of him. "It's not _who,_ it's _where!_" he exclaimed, oblivious to the conversation he'd just interrupted.

John wasn't sure how to respond, but he was saved the trouble when Sherlock continued without pause, "A Bizco secretary, a teller from Presser Bank, and a financial adviser from HP Insurance. Don't you see?" He dumped the papers on John's lap, jabbing his finger at one seemingly at random.

John picked up the paper and studied it for a few moments, feeling both Sherlock and Ms. Hudson's eyes on him. "A crime scene report," he said, glancing up. "Isaac Richter's."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "_Yes_, John, but what else?"

John couldn't understand why Sherlock wasn't just telling him whatever it was that he'd figured out, but he took to the paper again, trying to discern the solution hidden underneath the facts and mystery. "Um… well, he was the first victim, found two days ago at…" John squinted at the paper. "459 Southampshire Street. It says that's his house, Sherlock." He looked up at his flatmate, who was still watching John expectantly. "I don't see what's so strange about that."

"You're missing it!" Sherlock sighed, taking two steps forward and snatching the paper out of John's hand. Without even looking at the report, he recited, "'Isaac Richter, age 37, discovered deceased in his living room.'" He paused, and when John said nothing, he exclaimed, "Really, John, it's so obvious even you could understand."

"Sherlock!" Ms. Hudson gasped, but he ignored her protest. John glanced over at her, trying to convey with his eyes that he hadn't been offended by the comment (even though that wasn't entirely true).

Evidently tired of waiting, Sherlock finally revealed his deduction. "_Discovered_, John. He was _discovered_ deceased in his living room. But where was he _killed?_"

John opened his mouth to say that he didn't understand, but the words got stuck halfway in his throat because suddenly, he _understood_. "You're saying," he realized slowly, "that someone murdered Isaac and then _moved_ his body back to his house?"

"_Yes_," Sherlock said, obviously relieved in John's awareness.

"But why?" John asked. "Why would whoever it was go through so much trouble? One can't exactly drag a dead body through the London Underground easily."

If Sherlock had been anyone else, John might have thought the brief sparkle in the other boy's eyes was suppressed laughter. "Because he or she needed them to be in exactly the right place. It's much easier to murder someone outside of the comfort of their homes and then move them."

John flipped through the papers sitting on his lap, starting to catch on to what Sherlock was saying. He unearthed the crime scene reports for the last two victims, eyes flicking over the pages quickly. "But here," John pointed out, tracing a line of text with his finger. "Kyle Hampton was found outside in his garage, and Stephanie Kildring was found in her office at Bizco." He felt his earlier comprehension begin to drain away, evaporating under the increasingly frustrated vibe Sherlock was giving off. An embarrassed shame replaced it, and John had to look away from Sherlock's intense gaze. He caught Ms. Hudson's eyes, sparkling with concern, and the shame only increased. How weak was he, that he couldn't even look his flatmate in the eyes, couldn't take the way Sherlock acted like a higher being, superior to him?

John swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down like a duck floating in water, and then met Sherlock's icy blue eyes again. He'd remained silent, as if waiting for John to come to the conclusion he'd already reached, and for a moment John wondered if Sherlock was _teaching _him.

No. _Challenging_ him. The slight quirk of the other's boy's lips; the way he had the answer hovering at the tip of his tongue, yet held it back, dangling it in front of John like a carrot in front of a donkey; the prompting questions and selective facts: Sherlock was _challenging_ John.

John felt himself fill with a new kind of strength: he couldn't resist a good challenge. "Easy to find," he said, the words coming out of nowhere. "Places they would be expected to be—places they would be found."

"Very good, John."

John hadn't been expecting the praise, nor the very faint curling of Sherlock's delicate lips into a small smile. While a warm feeling began to spread its way through John's chest, Sherlock plowed on with his elaborate deduction, as if John's miniscule contribution had unlocked a dam of knowledge and facts. "This murderer doesn't want his work hidden—if he did, why carve the numbers on their chests? He's elaborate, toying with us, communicating through these murders, and he can't do that if the bodies are so cleverly hidden so as to never be found. No, he's showing off, and the best part—"

Sherlock paused the briefest of moments, but the image of him in that moment stuck with John forever: the way Sherlock's eyes animated, glowing with passion, and his sharp cheekbones pulsed up and down as his jaw worked, mind racing at a million miles an hour as, piece by piece, the puzzle came together. Then, the instant shattered, and words spilled out of Sherlock again.

"—The best part is that this whole thing is a game. One big, deadly game."

Ms. Hudson let out a small squeak. "Sherlock! These are _people_ we're talking about."

"Yes, yes. My condolences," Sherlock said with a wave of his pale, slender fingers. "In fact, John, why don't we go pay our respects?" With a swish, he was gone, the room seeming distressingly empty in his absence, and after a moment, John stood.

"He's not actually…?" John asked, trailing off at the end. To think that Sherlock actually intended to mourn for the dead seemed ludicrous; he treated them like dolls, their lifeless eyes and papery skin only maps full of clues to solve cases.

Ms. Hudson confirmed his suspicions with a resigned shake of her head. "He probably just wants to visit the morgue again, dear."

John nodded. "Well, I'd better…" He indicated the direction Sherlock had fled, and Ms. Hudson smiled and nodded.

"Keep him safe, John," she said as he was almost out the door. He paused just under the doorframe, glancing over his shoulder. Concern painted her face, and her eyes were wide like a child's. "God knows he does the darndest things." She laughed a little, a nervous tremble entering the sound.

And though John had no idea what lay ahead, he looked Ms. Hudson directly in the eyes and said, "I promise." Then, he turned and shut the door behind him, ascending the creaky wood stairs with the weight of his vow resting heavily on his shoulders.

Just as he reached for the rusted brass door handle, the wooden door whipped open, brushing so close to John's face that the very edge brushed against the tip of his freckled nose. He froze, and then found himself knocked to the side as Sherlock barreled out of the doorway, dark blue trench coat flapping around his calves. John's back hit the railing with jarring force, and he swallowed a cry of pain.

"Come on, John!" Sherlock exclaimed, only pausing when he reached the bottom of the rickety flight of stairs, swinging around one of the railing ends to look back up at John. "Hurry!"

With a groan, John disentangled himself from the railing, mentally cursing Sherlock—not for the first time, certainly not the last. "What's the rush?" John inquired, barely reaching Sherlock before the other boy took off again, opening the front door and letting in a torrent of raindrops, whisked through the front entrance on a strong gust of wind. John considered going back for his jacket, but Sherlock's next words captured his attention entirely.

"There's been another murder."


	5. Chapter 5

The wind cut through John's jumper, and he hugged his arms to himself, the miniscule hairs on his skin rising to attention like miniature soldiers. Beside him, Sherlock's trench coat fluttered upwards as if attempting to take flight, and John caught a glimpse of pale ankle. The pavement, riddled with puddles that sloshed under their feet, quickly coated their shoes with a thick layer of grimy water. Ahead, red and blue flashing lights illuminated the rapidly darkening road, yellow caution tape cordoning off the crime scene. Sherlock, a few paces ahead of John, ducked under the tape and held it up for John to pass under. John did so, trying to ignore the pleasant feeling that sprung up in his chest whenever Sherlock did something like that: a little act of humanism.

Then, Sherlock commented, "I wonder what our murderer has left for us this time," and the moment was shattered. John's half-smile melted off of his face, and he cowered further into himself—only partly from the cold.

A small group of adults clustered near a police cruiser, coffee cups clutched tightly in their gloved hands. As Sherlock and John neared them, their footsteps ringing out through the street, some of them turned, and John distinguished a woman with wavy black hair and a man with a tight-pinched face. They both scowled at the sight of the two boys approaching them, the woman rolling her eyes and setting her coffee cup on the hood of the cruiser. "You've got to be kidding me," the man remarked, his voice more biting than the wind. "They called _you_?"

"This is a _real_ case, Anderson," Sherlock said, his voice edging towards mocking, but only slightly. "Of course they called me."

"Lestrade," the woman cut in, spitting the name out like it was poison. She sauntered next to Anderson, regarding the two of them with contempt. "He brings in children to do adults' work." She squinted at John. "Who're you? His boyfriend?" She nodded towards Sherlock, smirking. Next to her, Anderson guaffed. The sound reminded John of the donkeys on his neighbors' farm back in Scotland: harsh and grating.

"Hardly," Sherlock replied, seemingly oblivious to the intended insult. Beside him, John felt his cheeks begin to burn and thanked God for the rapid darkening of the roadway. The sun had set a half an hour before, and night had begun to set in over London. The perfect atmosphere for a murder. "John Watson, Sally Donovan and _Anderson_." He curled his lip at Anderson.

"Does he have a first name?" John stammered, not quite sure what else to say.

Anderson opened his mouth to speak, but Sherlock beat him to it. "No." He swept away in a swish of dark blue turned black by the night, leaving John slightly stunned and still reeling from Sally's _boyfriend_ comment.

Maybe because it reminded him of Mary.

_No._ He promised himself he wouldn't think about any of them, any of the people he'd left behind in Scotland. Especially not her, with her soft blonde pixie cut and grey-blue eyes, like the rolling ocean, observed from the secluded spot under the boardwalk where they first kissed—

"Hey," Sally said loudly, breaking John from his trance. He blinked rapidly to banish the memories, regarding the black-haired woman in front of him. With Sherlock gone, she leaned in closer to Anderson, almost unintentionally—like he was the sun and she Venus, the two connected by an invisible force stronger than anything. Despite the ghosts of John's memories, he couldn't stop the small smile that rose to his lips. "You two—you and Sherlock—you aren't friends, are you?"

John considered Sally's preposition. Were he and Sherlock friends? What, exactly, transitioned a relationship from flatmates to acquaintances to actual friends? Was it finding jobs for one another? Calling in favors? Trusting someone to investigate a murder—a string of murders—with you? John didn't know. Sherlock didn't seem like a friend. "I'm not quite sure," he decided finally, the question still turning itself over in his mind.

"Don't be." John glanced up sharply. Sally's eyes fixed themselves on John's, soft yet intense at the same time. "Sherlock Holmes, he's…"

"He's a psychopath," Anderson finished, and John's heart began to hammer in his chest. The word 'psychopath' rang through the air between them, vibrating in his bones long after every remnant of the sound of it dissipated. Images flashed through his mind's eye—Sherlock's wide grin at the mere mention of corpses, his elation at the discovery of a pattern in the murders, the way he wandered around in a sort of sulky haze during the absence of a case—and John took an involuntary step backwards. "He's a bloody _psychopath_," Anderson repeated, and John swallowed sharply.

"I don't think," John said carefully, "that Sherlock's the type to have friends." He nodded at the pair of them, first to Sally, then Anderson, before brushing past them and following Sherlock into the heart of the crime scene, a foul taste coating his mouth.

John found Sherlock right where he expected: crouched over the body of the victim, expert white-gloved hands hovering over her stomach without so much as a tremor. A few feet away, Lestrade stood with his hand stroking his chin absentmindedly, and John was about to join him when Sherlock spoke up. "John, come here."

John cast a glance at Lestrade, who, after a moment's hesitation, nodded his assent. "Just put these on," he instructed, passing John a pair of milky-white Latex gloves. John pulled them on quickly, feeling the powder on the inside ghost over his skin, and then crouched next to Sherlock. He couldn't stop his eyes from sliding over to glance at the other boy, taking in the sharp, pale cheekbones and the dark, contrasting curls that spilled messily over the sides of his face. Was this porcelain doll really a psychopath?

Icy blue eyes darted over to meet John's, and he looked away quickly, embarrassment flooding his system. He swallowed all poor attempts at an explanation for his actions and instead set to examining the body.

While John didn't have an ounce of secondary medical schooling in him, the brief classes he'd taken while in high school plus his experiences at St. Bart's lent him the ability to make a relatively accurate—albeit simple—observation about the body in front of him, a woman who looked to be in her thirties—the killer's M.O. Her face was startlingly pale, almost as pale as Sherlock's; her pale green eyes, wide open and staring up at the sky lifelessly, were sunken into their sockets. "Overall, she looks malnourished," John concluded, feeling stupid as soon as he said it. Of course she was malnourished—she was dead. He sat back on his heels and, putting aside his pride, shrugged. "What do you see?"

Sherlock's eyes were still on John, and he began to feel quite uncomfortable. Finally, when he wasn't sure if he could handle the intensity any longer, Sherlock returned his attention to the body in front of them, gesturing to it with both hands. "Woman, mid-thirties. Malnourished would be an accurate diagnosis—were she alive. However, dead, I would associate her pale skin with blood loss." He spread his hands over her stomach, fingers almost brushing against her black blazer. "Desk job, two dogs—collie and…huskie—and one child. Based on our killer's preferences, I would guess a faceless employee in a big business."

"Melanie Harvey," Lestrade called from the side, and John glanced over his shoulder to see the older man grasping a manila folder in his hands, leafing through the contents with the skilled hands of a trained, experienced professional. "A customer-service receptionist in Gregory and Boris Financial. 35 years old, married with a 2-year-old son." He regarded Sherlock with no surprise at the boy's accuracy; John, however, allowed himself to marvel for a moment at Sherlock's brilliance, forgetting about the body and the killer and the flashing lights around them. How could someone this intelligent be a psychopath?

_Intelligence has nothing to do with it_, a small voice in John's head whispered, but he pushed it away, instead concentrating on Sherlock. He, at the moment, had his fingers gripping one of Melanie's plastic buttons, slipping it with some effort through the hole and loosening the jacket's hold on her still chest. As the black blazer slowly came undone, revealing a starched white shirt underneath it, John sucked in a breath.

Blood, dark and thick, soaked the undershirt so densely that one could hardly tell it was white. Hidden by the dark suit coat, the full extent of her injuries came to light as Sherlock pushed the jacket out of the way, eyes scanning the body in front of him at lightning speed. He must have discerned something through the mess of blood and fabric in front of him because the next thing John knew Sherlock began to work on the smaller buttons of the undershirt, starting from the bottom and working upward. If it had been anyone else, John would have protested the violation of the woman, but he hardly thought Sherlock's intentions were anything other than purely focused on the injuries.

"Oh," John gasped suddenly, leaning forward to get a better look at the woman's stomach, which Sherlock had just uncovered fully. "Oh, my God."

Blood covered everything; her skin shone with the liquid, bathed an almost unnatural scarlet. John never would have believed such extensive injuries were even possible had he not seen them himself in that very moment. Slowly, deliberately, Sherlock reached forward and began to trace the outline of something on her mutilated stomach, pushing the blood away in smears that would have made anyone queasy. John suppressed his nausea and watched, more out of fear than curiosity, as Sherlock cleared the blood away bit by bit.

Then, words emerged, cut in through skin, fat, and muscle in clean lines and corners. John felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth, his throat suddenly very, very dry. Still, he managed to read the words aloud, his voice filling the suddenly stifling air around him. "_Now that I have your attention, let's play. Remember: white always leads. 12 hours. Too slow, and he dies._" John's voice wavered, and he stopped abruptly, swallowing repeatedly in an attempt to rid himself of the tight knot in his throat.

"Who's 'he'?" Lestrade asked, his question floating in from outside an invisible bubble that had seemed to surround Sherlock and John, sealing them away from the external world.

John tried to respond that he didn't know, but he choked on the words. Never in his life had John ever felt more afraid—for whoever 'he' was, for all the people on the killer's hit list, for himself, even for Sherlock—and it made him feel so pathetic and weak, especially next to Sherlock, whose fear—if he possessed any—never seemed to get the better of him. John didn't even know why he cared so much what Sherlock thought of him—Sherlock was his flatmate, nothing more. John had told Sally and Anderson the truth: Sherlock wasn't the type to have friends, especially not someone like John, who cared so much about other people and feared for their lives more than his own, who, whenever he lost someone, lost a part of himself in the process. From what John knew of Sherlock, a boy made of blue fire and ice, other people were simply _there_, existing side-by-side with him, never quite touching Sherlock the way people had the ability to touch John.

John found himself suddenly, inexplicable grateful for this distance when Sherlock took the words out of John's mouth. "The killer's next victim." He stood abruptly, peeling the gloves off his hands in one smooth motion that John could never hope to replicate. "He wants a game—that's why this is timed; 12 hours to find this man and save his life."

"And so we're white, then," Lestrade said, attempting to make the connection for himself. "Because we're the good guys."

"Wrong," Sherlock said, and Lestrade raised one bushy eyebrow. "The power is in _his_ hands. He holds the advantage over us—the time limit, the body count, the secret of the game, it's all his." The corner of his mouth twitched, and John saw a brief return to the _joy_ Sherlock got from all of this, the little bit of psychopath in him leaking through cracks in the ice. "He's the white knight, and white always leads."

The smile grew a bit, letting just a bit more of Sherlock's elation emerge, and John began to see how Sherlock could be black.

* * *

><p>John's finger hovered over the <em>call<em> button, his hand shaking just enough that if he brought the two any closer together, he'd accidentally press the green rectangle and the choice wouldn't be his anymore. A few agonizing moments passed, the silence in 221B filled with everything and nothing at the same time, and then John threw his phone across the room in one fluid motion. It bounced off of the flowered couch and hit the floor screen-down, but John didn't move to see if it had cracked. Instead, he curled his knees up on the armchair and buried his head in his arms, closing his eyes and facing the black of the backs of his eyelids.

As soon as he and Sherlock had returned back to 221B, John beyond frozen from the gale-force winds whipping incessant rain into his face, Sherlock had holed up in his room without a word, sweeping piles of papers and several laptops in with him and slamming the door as a goodbye. John had stared at the closed door for a moment before fixing himself a makeshift dinner of undercooked Ramen noodles and pre-cooked deli chicken and settling himself in front of the television. After a few episodes of _Grey's Anatomy_, his eyes had started to droop, and the next thing he knew it was the middle of the night and he was jerking awake, his heart pounding heavily in his chest.

Mary. She'd led him here, filling his dreams with her face, her mouth shaping words that begged and cried and made John want to crumple at her feet and apologize for everything. He'd gone so far as to dial her number—still ingrained in his memory despite deleting it from his contacts—into his phone, but the guilt kept him from going through with the call.

He knew that it wasn't her fault. None of this was her fault, of course not. From the start, he'd never blamed her for anything, not once. Himself, however—that was a different animal entirely, a beast with long fangs and claws that sliced painfully. He couldn't let her get caught in the crossfire, so he'd let her go. He still remembered the day when he'd confessed to her that he was moving to London, seeing the hurt expression on her delicate face.

"But why?" she'd asked for what had seemed like thousands of time, the words cutting into his heart every time like knives into hot butter. Her lip would wobble, and he'd almost go running straight back into her arms.

Almost. "Because a family friend lives there," he'd explain time and time again, the excuse seeming weaker and weaker each time he uttered it. "Ms. Hudson. She owns a building—I'm renting a flat from her."

"That's _how_," Mary had protested, grabbing John's broad shoulders with her long-fingered hands. They were pale and knobby, just like Sherlock's—the hands of a pianist or violinist, though Mary was completely and utterly tone-deaf. "I just need to know _why_. Why are you leaving me?"

John had remained silent every time because saying the truth would hurt too much. He couldn't put into words the pain he felt seeing everything at home and knowing that his life had been torn apart by some horrible universal force. Everything reminded him of _them_, and looking at it all and remembering the night he came home from his date with Mary to find them…

John gasped, ripping himself out of the memories with an almost super-human force. He couldn't call Mary, not if it made him feel like this. Besides, calling her would just reopen old wounds that needed time and separation to heal. Contacting her wouldn't allow the space she needed to cut her ties with John and continue on with her life. That was what John really wanted, deep down beneath the hurt and the pain and the loss: for Mary to find happiness, with or without John.

Suddenly weary beyond belief, John sank back down in the armchair and curled up even tighter. His phone still lit up across the room, Mary's undialed number flashing on the screen, the world faded away around John as he succumbed to a deep sleep that not even the vivid memories of his past could penetrate.


	6. Chapter 6

"Who's 'Mary Morstan'?"

John blinked wearily up at Sherlock, brain foggy and still lingering to sleep. "Mhm?" he grunted, yawning. He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing.

Sherlock held up John's phone, and through his haze of sleepiness, John saw a green call button. "Mary Morstan," Sherlock repeated, looking back at John's phone. "Your girlfriend."

_Girlfriend._ Suddenly very awake, John reached out and snatched his phone out of Sherlock's hands. "Why do you have my phone?" he snapped, quickly exiting out of the dialer and locking his screen.

"It was on the floor outside my door." Sherlock's eyes were level. "Bad break-up, I see."

"None of your business," John grumbled, unfolding himself from the armchair and storming into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. Tea just wasn't going to cut it this morning. "Isn't anything private?" he muttered, filling his kettle with slightly shaking fingers.

"John."

John closed his eyes and sighed. "What?" he demanded, not turning around. A small voice inside his head pointed out that he was being too harsh on Sherlock—the problems in John's life were his alone, no fault of Sherlock's—but John ignored it.

"I'm sorry."

This time, John did turn, barely disguising his surprise. Sherlock had his eyes cast away from John, his pale lips pressed tightly together. "What?" John said, not knowing what else to say.

Sherlock's eyes met John's, just for a moment, and for the first time since John had met Sherlock a little more than a week ago, the other boy's eyes portrayed an emotion other than disdain or morbid excitement—Sherlock actually _looked_ sorry. Then, he swiveled and stalked back into the living room. "You'll be late for work," he said, words fading as he closed himself in his room again. The door slammed, jarring John's teeth, and after a moment of whiplash, John set the kettle on the stove and started the burner.

John stared at Sherlock's door, wondering what it looked like open, and then pulled out his phone to check the time.

"Hell," he cussed loudly, forgetting completely about his coffee as he bolted out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into his room. He grabbed the first clean-looking clothes off of the floor and quickly changed, grabbing his laptop bag and car keys before darting out of the flat.

John skidded into St. Bart's parking lot exactly two minutes before his shift. He burst in through the double-glass doors, chest heaving, and Molly glanced up from the reception desk in surprise. "John," she said, but he raced past her with a hurried, "Can't talk right now, Molly, sorry, I'm late."

"I can see that!" Molly called behind him as he rounded the corner, her words following him all the way to the room labeled _Sarah Sawyer, M.D._ He paused a moment to collect himself and then slipped into the office, where Dr. Sawyer sat behind a large wooden desk, filing paperwork. She looked up as the door swung shut behind John, smiling at the sight of him.

"Been running?" she asked, a bit of laughter entering her voice, and John's cheeks flushed more, a laugh of his own escaping him.

"You know," he joked, settling down in the chair across from her, "health benefits."

She chuckled, pushing back a piece of dirty-blonde hair that had spilled over her face. "Here," she said, passing John a manila folder. "Since you seem so set on exercise, run this over to the filing room and put it in the cabinet marked _John Does_."

John took the file. Then, even though he knew it really wasn't any of his business, he couldn't help but ask, "A new John Doe came in?"

Dr. Sawyer sighed, tapping the pen in her hand against the desk. "Just wrapping up something from a couple of weeks ago." She smiled at John again, but this one seemed forced. "When you're finished, come back into my office. You can help me with paperwork."

John paused a moment before nodding and exiting her office, navigating without too much trouble to the filing room. His apprenticeship consisted mainly of paperwork and the occasional observation session, but John tried to look past the initial boredom and see the positive side of this. He had a job in the hospital. He got to work with Molly and Dr. Sawyer, two people with whom he had begun to develop a sort of friendship with. Best of all, he'd done some digging, and St. Bart's offered a program where talented individuals could go through medical school under a scholarship through the hospital, as long as they returned to work at St. Bart's.

To think, John had the chance to be an actual _doctor._ He could put up with anything to have that chance, even if that thing did happen to be hours of filing paperwork.

John flipped on the light switch in the filing room, weaving through rows and columns of pale gray filing cabinets to the very back corner where the files on John and Jane Does were kept. He opened the correct cabinet, but instead of slipping the folder in among hundreds of others, he hesitated a moment. Then, even though he knew he could get fired, he flipped the file open and quickly scanned its contents.

Nothing. Just another body, another person whose family would never know of their demise because their own identities were unknown. John snapped the folder shut, slightly disgusted with himself, and hastily put it in with the others. Slamming the cabinet shut, he exited the filing room, his hands shaking at his sides.

What, exactly, had he expected to find? Another victim of Sherlock's murderer's game, miraculously placed right in John's hands? Shaking his head, John banged back into Dr. Sawyer's office, thumping back down in the chair.

Dr. Sawyer frowned at John. "Are you okay?"

John realized his hands were clenched in tight fists, and he willed them to loosen. "Yeah," he said, surprising himself at the calmness of his voice. "Just a bad night of sleep."

Dr. Sawyer studied John a moment more. Seemingly satisfied, she cleared her throat. "All right. I have two files here I need you to classify—make sure to include both the symptoms _and_ the diagnosis…"

She continued to outline John's work for the day, and he half-listened, his mind drifting back to this morning and Sherlock and the case.

The case. John didn't want to think about it—some man was about to _die_, for Heaven's sake, and there was nothing he could do about it—but he couldn't help it. Sherlock was likely back at the flat, toiling away over files, looking for some pattern he could only see, and here John was, filing paperwork. His stomach turned, and it wasn't until Dr. Sawyer cleared her throat that John realized she'd stopped talking and now studied him, clearly waiting for him to respond.

"Um…" John said, his face beginning to burn again. "I'll get right on it."

Dr. Sawyer sighed. "I asked you if you were listening. I guess I have my answer."

John's embarrassment burned so hotly, he feared he would spontaneously combust. "I'm sorry," he apologized, fixing his eyes on one of Dr. Sawyer's Post-It notes stuck to the back of her computer screen so he wouldn't have to look her in the eyes. In her scrawling handwriting, it read, _Pick up Harrison at 9:30 for Chess Battle._ Scrambling for something else to say that might diffuse the situation, John pointed to the note. "You're leaving at 9:30?"

Dr. Sawyer picked up the Post-It, scanned it quickly, and then hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Crap," she muttered, glancing quickly at the clock behind her. "It's already 8:30." She stood quickly, collecting her coat with one hand and closing her laptop with the other.

John stood with her, curiosity getting the better of him. "What's Chess Battle?"

He thought Dr. Sawyer would brush him off, but instead she shook her head and let out a small laugh. "Some thing my son Harrison wanted to participate in today—that I agreed to pull him out of school for." She ran a hand over her face, pausing in her franticness for a moment. "Have you read Harry Potter?"

John blinked at her. "What?"

Dr. Sawyer continued on like she hadn't heard him. "Well, my son has, and he's obsessed. Apparently, in the first book, Harry and his friends go on this big quest to find some stone, and one of the challenges on the way is a life-sized chess game."

"Okay?"

Dr. Sawyer pushed some papers around her desk before locating one and shoving it at John. He caught it against his chest, pulling it away to look at it. A large lightning bolt sliced across the flier, the words "LARGEST HARRY POTTER CONVENTION IN THE WORLD" pasted across it in bold letters. "How could I say no?" Dr. Sawyer shrugged. "He's never asked for anything else before."

John glanced up at Dr. Sawyer, who had pulled on a black pea coat and had her purse slung over one arm. Her mouth was curled up into a small smile, eyes soft and loving, and John's heart throbbed painfully in his chest. In this moment, she reminded him so much of his mother that it hurt. "I'll see you tomorrow, then," he said, and Dr. Sawyer's face lit up with gratefulness.

"Thank you so much for understanding, John," she gushed, like he actually would have prevented her from leaving. She took a step towards the door, and then paused with her hand on the doorknob. "Why don't you take the day off?" she suggested, looking back at John, who still had the Harry Potter flier clutched in his hands. "That paperwork isn't going anywhere." She smiled softly at him, turning the knob and leaving him standing speechless in the middle of her office.

It took him a good five minutes before he found the will to move again—before he found the strength to dig himself out of the wave of memories that had swept over him after Dr. Sawyer had departed. His mother would have taken him out of school to go to a convention in a heartbeat; his mother would have smiled gently at him and given him the day off; his mother would have done anything for him.

John realized he had crumpled the flier up in his fingers unintentionally, and after loosening his grip, he also left the office, his laptop bag slung crossways over his body. Molly glanced up from her computer as he whisked past her desk, her fingers stilling over the keyboard. "I just saw Dr. Sawyer leave," she called out, and John paused. "Is something wrong?"

He turned to face Molly, flashing her the best smile he could manage. "No. She just forgot she had to take her son to a Harry Potter convention today, so now I have the day off."

Wistfully, Molly said, "That sounds nice. I wish _my_ boss gave me the day off because of a convention."

John leaned on her desk, placing his chin on his hands and looking up at her. "It's not like I'm planning on going," he said, adjusting his position and laying the flier flat in front of her. "I haven't even read the books."

Molly gasped, placing a hand over her heart dramatically. "You poor, sheltered boy!"

"I'm 18," John protested, equally as dramatic. "I think you mean 'stellar young man'."

Molly shook a finger at him. "Nope. You have to _earn_ that title." She took the flier in her hand and read it aloud. "'Gather your wands, Harry Potter fans—the greatest Harry Potter convention in the world is coming to you in London. Test your wizarding skills at numerous challenges, listen in on interviews from the cast members, and join us for a special visit from J.K. Rowling herself!'" Molly sighed, and then stomped her foot. "Damn, I wish I could go."

"Why aren't you?" John asked, drumming his fingers on the desk.

"Because I'm here," Molly grumbled, tapping her computer screen with one finger. "Besides, the con has been sold out for weeks, and do you know how expensive tickets are?"

She sighed again, this time in exasperation, and handed the flier back to John. "She's so lucky that she gets to go."

"I think her son's more excited than her," John said, rolling the flier up and tucking it in the front pocket of his laptop bag. "He's participating in some life-sized chess game."

Molly squealed, clapping her hands together. "Like in the first book, when Ron sacrificed himself to save Harry?"

John shrugged, and Molly reached over and hit him on the shoulder. "Remind me to lend you the books, Watson."

"Okay, _Hooper_," John teased, and Molly pushed him away, giggling.

"Please," a tired voice commented from behind them, and John whipped around to see Sherlock standing in the lobby, a dark blue scarf wrapped once around his neck. _Really_, John thought, _does he own any color other than _blue? "Get a room."

The phrase would have sounded funny coming out of Sherlock's mouth had he not said it with such emotionlessness. As it was, John's neck began to burn, and behind him, Molly cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Hello, Sherlock," she said, her throat tight.

Sherlock nodded in acknowledgement. "Molly." He turned his attention to John, his eyes locking first on John's face and then his laptop bag. "What's in your bag, John?" he asked with the tone of someone who already knew something but asked anyway, just to see how the other person would respond.

"A flier," John said, reaching over and drawing the paper out of the bag. He handed it to Sherlock, who unrolled it deftly and scanned the words with swift eyes. During the short lapse in conversation, John felt Molly's discomfort like a tangible touch to his shoulder, and he glanced behind him for a brief moment to see her focused on her computer screen, deliberately not looking at the two of them.

"Good," Sherlock said, and John glanced back at the other boy. "You must have realized, too, then."

John shook his head in confusion. "Realized what?" he asked.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Really, John, it's spelled out so clearly."

"Realized. What." John had begun to tire of Sherlock's little games—besides, he felt sure this had something to do with the case, which just so happened to be on a strict timer at the moment. Neither of them had the time for this.

"The _chess game,_" Sherlock explained, clearly exasperated with John's lack of cooperation. "Our 12 hours is coming to an end, John: I _need_ you to understand."

Though this wasn't the place for a full-blown argument with his new flatmate, John couldn't help but say, "Why? _You're_ the detective, Sherlock! Why do _I_ have to understand?"

Sherlock blinked at John, his expression blank. "Why indeed." He spun on the balls of his feet and whisked out of the hospital, John's eyes remaining fixed on the empty spot the boy had just occupied.

"You know," Molly said quietly from behind him, "Sherlock's not mean. Not really."

John looked down at the ground, studying the paisley rug under his feet intently. Remorse crept in on light feet, and he let it.

"Actually, I think he likes you," Molly mused.

John bit his lip. "Not likely." Not after how John had been treating him.

One glass door whooshed open, letting in a gust of pressurized air. "Are you coming, John?" Sherlock asked, and John saw out of the corner of his eye one polished black shoe step partially through the doorway. "We really don't have much time." There was a pause. "Fifty-one minutes, to be exact."

John closed his eyes. Then: "Yeah. I'm coming." How could he say no?

The door swung closed again, and when John finally raised his eyes from the floor, he saw Sherlock standing just outside the door, his back to John, his dark curls whipping around in the wind.

"If he doesn't like you," Molly commented, her voice soft, "then why did he come back?"

John stared at Sherlock a moment longer. He had his hands tucked away in his coat pockets—that damn coat. It was the middle of June, for God's sake—and despite the strong morning wind, he remained motionless, a stone statue with the mind of a genius. "I don't know," John whispered, quietly enough that Molly couldn't hear. Then, he opened the hospital doors and met the windstorm head-on, moving forward to stand at Sherlock's side. He could feel Molly's eyes on him; the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

"Come on," John said, starting forward. "We'll take my car."


	7. Chapter 7

John had to park twelve blocks away from the convention center, pulling in between a bright red sports car and a very out-of-place rusty pick-up truck. Shutting off the purring engine was a relief and a curse all at the same time: for one, it meant that finally the awkward silence between him and Sherlock during the drive over would dissipate; but on the other hand, a new kind of quiet crept into the absence of engine noise.

Sherlock reached for the door handle, preparing to let in the gale-force winds from outside, but John quickly said, "Wait!"

Sherlock paused mid-motion, his hand hovering on the silver handle, and John cleared his throat, the noise seeming too loud in the close quarters of the car. "Look, I know you like me to figure things out for myself, but can you just _tell_ me why we're here?" His words sounded tired even to his own ears, and John tried to remedy them by adding, "Don't tell me you're a Harry Potter fan."

Sherlock snorted. "Please. Magic? Ridiculous." He cracked open the car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, the wind whipping his hair violently around his ears in a maelstrom of jet-black curls. From where John sat, he looked like a vengeful god, prepared to inflict his wrath upon all those not worthy of his grace. "I'll tell you on the way," he said, leaning into the car for a brief moment. His curls stilled and fell over his face, obscuring his dark blue eyes before he pushed the locks back impatiently. "32 minutes."

John barely had time to lock the car before they were sprinting, weaving their way through the London sidewalks and probably making bloody fools of themselves. John offered 'excuse us', 'pardon me', and 'sorry' enough for the both of them, dealing with the aftermath of Sherlock's beeline toward the convention center. By the time they reached the doors, the throngs of people had become so tightly packed that John was sure Sherlock would be forced to stop, at least slow down. Fans stood in close-knit clumps, some in street clothes, even more adorned with robes and wands and more than a few lightning bolts on foreheads; a line stretched out into the large concrete plaza in front of the center, despite filtering in through at least five doors. Nobody seemed to be moving anywhere, and John's heart sank. _25 minutes_, a voice in his head reminded him, sounding suspiciously like Sherlock.

_Sherlock_. With a start, John realized that, somehow, the other boy had slipped in among the crowds, his dark curls lost among thousands of black, wavy-haired wigs. Heart hammering—_24 minutes_—John elbowed his way through the masses, tenderly at first and then with more vigor, the stopwatch inside his head counting down every precious second.

"Hey!" someone protested as John slipped inside one of the doorways, sucking in his stomach to fit in between the doorframe and a portly kid dressed as Cedric Diggery. "No cutting!"

John ignored him, breaking free into the wide, open cavern of the convention center with a relieved gasp. Inside, the fans scattered the floor all the way to the edges, but the gaps between them were wide enough for John to dart through with ease.

He wanted to call Sherlock's name, shout it loud enough that it would resonate through the entire center and the other boy would _have_ to listen, to at least _acknowledge_ John, but the ambient noise filling the air to the brink would have stifled his cries. John cursed Sherlock's silence—the other boy could have at least _told_ him the plan so John knew where to go—and tried to think.

_Think._ Out of breath, John paused next to an information kiosk—_20 minutes_—and tried to picture things like Sherlock did. _Stupid, stupid_, John mentally cursed, partially himself, partially Sherlock. _19 minutes._

"Excuse me," a small voice piped up, and John glanced over at the information kiosk. A small girl with a Slytherin scarf wrapped tightly around her neck leaned over the counter slightly, studying John curiously. "Do you need help with something?"

Wondering if he looked like the kind who needed help, John hesitated a millisecond before crossing a cross-stream of people and approaching the kiosk. "I just lost my… the person I was with." _18 minutes._ He couldn't conjure up a smile. "I'm not sure if that's something you can help with."

She bit her lip. "What did this person look like?"

"Um…" John struggled for anything other that 'black, curly hair, blue eyes'. "Probably running, dark blue trench coat and scarf… high cheekbones?"

The girl was silent for ten agonizing seconds, silently mouthing something to herself. Slowly, she shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said, her eyes meeting John's, and he could see she really meant it; her eyebrows turned down at the outer edges, eyes widening slightly, face softening. Seeing the destroyed expression that must have made itself painstakingly obvious on his face, she slapped on a sympathetic smile and pushed a piece of blue printer paper across the counter towards him. "But hey—if he's any sort of fan, he's probably at one of these things." She jabbed a finger at the paper; her fingernails had black nail polish painted on them, accented by a gold stripe horizontally across each one. "I recommend the chess game—did you know the pieces they have are to scale with the ones used in the movie?" She leaned against the side of the kiosk, green eyes lighting up with admiration. "At least six feet tall, every one of them—even the pawns. Almost like playing chess with actual people as the pieces."

John glanced down at the blue piece of paper, where the girl's finger had been pointing. 'JOIN THE FUN IN AN EPIC GAME OF LIFE-SIZED CHESS – LEFT ATRIUM, FIRST FLOOR', with a picture of two chess pieces beneath it—one white, one black.

"White always leads," John breathed, the facts clicking together all at once like pieces of a puzzle. _17 minutes._ He glanced up sharply, fisting the paper in his hand. "Where's the left atrium?"

The girl pointed to John's right. "Down that aisle, all the way to the end. You can't miss it."

"Thanks," John said, already in motion.

"No problem!" she called after him, but her words were lost in the mix of thousands of others all mingling together into white noise. Scattered bits of conversation whipped past John's ears, excited words exchanged between friends or vendors attempting to attract fans to their booths. As his lungs heaved and his legs burned, John skidded through an archway labeled 'LEFT ATRIUM' and headed towards the roar of hundreds of voices, renewing his frantic search for his flatmate with more vigor.

"Sherlock!" John dared to shout, stopping because what else could he do? The journey had ended; the end, before only in the distance, was here; not five feet in front of John, a massive chessboard spread across the concrete floor, adorned with equally as massive pieces. He spun in a circle, earning plenty of curious stares, but John could only concentrate on the blood rushing in his ears and the clock ticking away in his head. _13 minutes._ "Sherlo—!"

"Shh!" Someone slapped their hand over John's mouth, and he panicked, thrashing back and forth like a fish out of water, going so far as to bite the fingers smothering him. "Bloody Hell, John," the owner of the hand swore without letting go, and through the fog in John's head, he groggily recognized the voice.

"Sherlock," John tried to say, but it came out more as, "Mhm-mch." Through supreme effort, John managed to calm himself enough that Sherlock cautiously removed his hand from John's mouth, and he turned to face the other boy.

Sherlock looked at his hand, where John's teeth had left a deep, red half-moon, and then back up at John's face. His eyebrows creased slightly—confusion? John did a double take. No, not confusion: intrigue. Nonetheless, something John had never seen Sherlock exhibit yet towards any human other than a serial killer.

_12 minutes_. John sucked in a breath, looking up at Sherlock with wild eyes. "12 minutes, Sherlock. Tell me, _now._ What are we going to do?"

Not _who's missing._ If—no, _when_—they saved him, that question would answer itself. Not _where is he_—that part, at least, John understood, or at least he thought he did. Not even _what's going on_—John had plenty of time to catch up to Sherlock, if that was even possible, but later. The life of whomever this serial killer—this _bastard_—had put at risk hung in the balance, and despite only knowing Sherlock a little more than a week, John knew Sherlock could save him.

Sherlock's eyes locked on the chessboard behind John, his jaw muscles tightening. He reminded John in that moment of a sort of soldier, a porcelain figure standing atop a hill and watching the battalions below, analyzing the situation and predicting the grim outcome. John wondered, briefly, if Sherlock would make a good soldier, and then dismissed the thought as immediately as it had come. If he knew anything about Sherlock, it was that his flatmate was not one to follow orders. He was the one to give them.

"Watch."

John blinked at Sherlock, his heart hammering in his chest. "What?" Maybe he'd heard Sherlock wrong—he couldn't have just said what John thought he had.

Sherlock pointed over John's shoulder, and John turned his head to focus on the chessboard, where two teams of 16 stood on opposite ends of the board, each person assigned to one chess piece. "White always leads," he said, taking a few steps forward to stand at John's side. "That's what our killer said, right? 'White always leads.' So, we watch."

"For _what?_" John hissed, tired of Sherlock's vague answers. "I am _not_ going to stand by and _watch_ as someone _dies_, Sherlock!"

"Shh," Sherlock said, nodding his head towards the chessboard. "It's starting."

John grit his teeth so hard his jaw throbbed. "If he dies," John said, so softly he wasn't even sure if Sherlock would hear it, "I will never forgive you."

For a moment, John thought he saw hurt flash across Sherlock's face, but he blinked and it vanished. "You wouldn't be the first," he said, voice flat and emotionless.

A wall of noise rose from the crowd, silencing any response John might have conjured. He craned his neck to see over the undulating sea of people in front of him, and beside him, Sherlock breathed, "It's starting."

Between the heads, John saw a girl clutching the top of a white pawn advance, pushing her chess piece two squares forward. John braced himself, not exactly sure what he expected to happen—an explosion, maybe, or gunshots—but the only result was a roar of appreciation from the fans crowding around the white side.

"What's happening?" John asked. "Sherlock, _8 minutes._"

Suddenly, Sherlock took off, darting through the crowd, elbowing people to the side and earning quite a few glares and exclamations of annoyance. With a muttered curse, John pursued him, apologizing vehemently as he pushed past flailing arms and jostling bodies.

"Everybody STOP!"

John froze; around him, people stilled, their cheers dying on their lips. Standing in the center of the chessboard, his arms spread wide as if holding back an invisible force, Sherlock regarded the masses, his eyes burning with hot blue fire. "I'm with the Metropolitan Police Service," he said, producing a badge from the depths of his blue coat and waving it around for the people standing closest to see. "I'll be conducting this game now."

Murmurs swept through the crowd, disbelieving looks cast between people. "Get off the board!" someone demanded, and John heard a few voice their assent.

"You," Sherlock said, whipping around and pointing at a tall boy with long brown hair falling just past his ears holding a black pawn. "Move forward one space."

"Why should I listen to you?" the boy asked. "Sherlock Holmes, right?"

Sherlock, in five long strides, crossed the black-and-white squares and paused next to the boy. He said something in his ear, his bow-shaped lips moving ever so slightly, and then pulled back. After a moment of worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, the boy nodded, stepping forward and sliding his pawn forward one space.

The arena buzzed with quiet words exchanged, all blending together into a noise like the sound of waves crashing against one another. Sherlock ignored the whispers, returning to the center of the chessboard and glancing towards the white side. "I would give you instructions, but you already have them, don't you?" he said, his voice barely carrying over the din.

In response, a boy holding another pawn took a step forward, advancing his piece one square. John, who had been slowly weaving his way through the crowd so as to get closer to the chessboard while Sherlock had talked, finally paused next to the edge of the board, nearer to the white pieces than the black. He saw Sherlock hold the boy's gaze for a few seconds before the boy broke contact, fixing his eyes on the pawn.

_6 minutes._

"Pawn to B6," Sherlock ordered.

John's heart felt like it had risen to his throat, throbbing against his windpipe as the players moved their pieces around the board, the blacks per Sherlock's hastily given instructions from the side. Minutes flew by, no matter how hard John tried to hold onto them, and the number of pieces on the board dwindled rapidly. As soon as Sherlock took out a white castle with his knight, a bishop emerged out of nowhere and eliminated his knight. Almost impossibly, Sherlock seemed _challenged_—whoever it was that controlled the white pieces, he was intelligent enough to rival Sherlock's intellect. Someone like that, fighting against them—

John rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. _2 minutes._ On the chessboard, Sherlock claimed the last of the white pawns. Three moves later, he lost his other castle. The game was flying by at break-neck pace; John could practically see the gears in Sherlock's head turning as he fired off command after rapid-fire command, leaving no room for rest. The players looked frazzled; who wouldn't be, John thought, pity rising up inside him. They hadn't asked for this; they'd simply come for a chess game, not this… _duel._

"King to G3!"

John watched a blonde-haired girl dressed as Luna Lovegood push the king one square, her black heels sliding slightly against the sleek surface. The whole crowd fell silent as Sherlock raised his chin, looking for all the world like an avenging angel. "Checkmate."

The white king stood alone, the frail boy next to it searching frantically for a square to move into. The queen in G2 and the king in G3 watched him, their faces shining with sweat, and after a few agonizing moments, the boy nodded slowly. "Checkmate," he repeated softly, his voice shaking.

The white king toppled over, hitting the chessboard with a hollow thud just as John's mental stopwatch reached _0._ John locked eyes with Sherlock, and despite Sherlock's victory, John braced himself for the worst.

Then, somewhere, someone started clapping slowly, the harsh sound ripping through the still air and making John's heart jump in his chest. Within seconds, the entire hall resonated with applause, the sound bouncing off of the concrete walls and echoing in John's ears.

Almost giddy with relief, John started towards Sherlock, but before he could take more than two steps across the chessboard, somebody darted in front of him—the frail boy, the white king—with wide, panicked eyes. "Get it off!" he sobbed, grabbing John's arm and squeezing it, his nails digging in painfully. "Please, get it off!"

"Get what off?" John croaked, all of his fear returning like a slap in the face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sherlock crossing the chessboard. His slow strides morphed into a sprint, so he was there by John's side when the boy pulled down the neck of his black Hogwarts-style robe, hands shaking vigorously, to reveal a tight metal collar hugging his neck.

"Oh my God," John exclaimed, putting his knuckles to his mouth, but Sherlock was shaking his head, reaching for the collar.

"No," he said, his fingers brushing against the metal. "I won the game. This should be deactivated."

The boy shook his head, tears welling up in his eyes. "Please," he whimpered. "I don't want to die."

"Nobody wants to die," Sherlock said, moving to examine the back of the collar with a steady calmness that stupefied John. "Such a silly fear, seeing as it's unavoidable."

"Maybe now is not the best time to discuss this?" John warned, giving Sherlock a pointed look.

Sherlock sighed, and then in one deft motion, he pulled the collar from the boy's neck. "Your lack of faith insults me."

The boy gasped, a tear dribbling down his cheek, and he turned his watery eyes towards John. "Thank you!" he exclaimed, his voice hitching. He let out a choked laugh, his fingers touching the pale skin of his neck. "Thank you!"

John's heart swelled. Beside him, Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Please. I wasn't going to let you die. Imagine the mess."

John bit back a laugh when he recognized the lack of humor in Sherlock's tone, clearing his throat to cover for it. Around them, people were clustered together tightly, their words mixing into white noise; Sherlock, John, and the boy had just been another group, unnoticed by the others. John almost laughed again at the obliviousness of them all. It was the adrenaline, he decided, making him so unbelievably giddy; now that everything was okay and nobody's life hung in the balance, everything just seemed so _happy_, to the point where John thought he would burst.

Sherlock, it seemed, had no such problem. "Can you tell me _anything_ about whoever put this on your neck?" he urged, staring at the boy intensely.

The boy bit his lip, his smile fading slowly, and John's did too as he saw fear return to the boy's eyes. "I-," the boy stammered, gaze flashing back and forth between John and Sherlock rapidly. "I- I'm sorry!"

He backed up a few steps, almost tripping over the edge of his robe, before turning and fleeing, pushing his way into the crowd and disappearing almost instantly among hundreds of other black robes. Beside John, Sherlock swore, taking a few steps in the direction the boy had gone before whipping back around to face John.

"This killer likes games, John. _He_ gave white the orders back on that chessboard, and _he_ lost."

"So does that mean we're done?" John ventured, hope rising in his chest. Maybe then, they could forget all about this: the murders and the numbers and his parents…

"No."

Everything came crashing down inside of John; he sucked in a breath, feeling the hope trickle out of his system.

"In fact," Sherlock continued, holding the metal collar in front of his face and turning it slowly in his pale hands, "I think we've just begun."


	8. Chapter 8

"Maybe you should be more careful with that," John pointed out, eyeing the collar in Sherlock's hands nervously.

Sherlock wedged the screwdriver deeper into the edge of the collar. "Relax, John."

"_Relax?_" John gulped as Sherlock wiggled the screwdriver back and forth, feeling his heartbeat rise to his throat, throbbing painfully. "You're dismantling a bloody _bomb_."

"Deactivated."

"_A bomb!_"

With a pop, the collar opened like a flayed fish, exposing rainbow wires and circuit boards. John braced himself, making his final amends to God, but the only reaction was a small sigh from Sherlock. When John cracked open one eye—he hadn't even realized he'd closed them—he almost choked on his own spit.

A smile. An actual_ smile_, rising faintly to Sherlock's lips like some creature poking its head out from hibernation after an extremely long winter. "You should have seen your face."

John sat, speechless, for the better half of a minute as Sherlock poked through the mess of wires, the smile somehow remaining stubbornly on his lips. When he finally spoke, it was only to mutter under his breath, "You cock," which only made Sherlock's grin intensify.

John shook his head and looked back down at his laptop, continuing his work. The tip-tap of keys pierced the silence as John entered in names and conditions, diagnosing mock illnesses—and maybe some real ones. "We'll scatter some real cases within the practice ones," Dr. Sawyer had explained, "so be alert."

Of course, John hadn't been able to resist asking about the convention. As soon as he mentioned it, he instantly regretted it: her eyes darkened, her smile dropping quickly, her fingers stilling against the keyboard. "God, it was horrible." She pressed her face into her palms, and John's stomach twisted painfully.

"What happened?" he asked, feigning ignorance.

Dr. Sawyer sighed, lowering her hands and shaking her head. "Not one move into the game, _Sherlock Holmes_ takes it upon himself to stop the _entire_ game and then has the _gall_ to tell my son off!"

_The black pawn_. John remembered Sherlock's pale lips hovering next to the boy's ear, whispering, and he swallowed the shame rising inside him. "How awful," he managed, doing his best to sound sympathetic.

"I spoke to administration after, but they gave me some crap about "police authority"." She sighed, the papers on her desk fluttering. "I really wouldn't be this upset, but Harrison cried—actually _cried_—on the way home." She bit her lip. "I haven't seen him cry since he broke his wrist last year."

John couldn't stand the guilt anymore, so he murmured his condolences and made a half-baked excuse for leaving her office, avoiding her for the rest of his shift. If she suspected anything, she didn't show it, nodding to him in passing like nothing had happened. It took all John had to nod and smile back.

"Sherlock," John blurted, his mouth retreating from the memory faster than his mind. "Back at the convention…"

Sherlock's eyes were on him now, intense spears of ice that made John shiver, and he had to struggle to get out the rest of his sentence. "Were you thinking about the kids?"

Sherlock's forehead creased. "Do you mean in terms of playing the game?" The bomb now lay on his lap, his hands stilled in midair over it.

"No." John drummed his fingers on his laptop keyboard, not wanting to ask Sherlock outright but failing to find an alternate route. "I mean… if you had lost, a lot of people would have died."

"Yes." Sherlock turned his attention back to the bomb, grabbing a pair of wire cutters from the couch next to him. "But I didn't lose."

"But if you had," John repeated more forcefully, closing his laptop. "Would you have cared?"

Sherlock paused mid-snip. The silence stretched on, filling John's ears with an uncomfortable ringing and stifling him to the point of stealing his breath away, so he spoke again, his words seeming disconnected from his body, floating in air like helium balloons. "You act as if you don't care, going about this case like it's some big game. People have _died_, and more will die unless we stop this killer, this _psychopath_." The unspoken words resonated even heavier than the spoken ones: the involvement of John's parents, the way the killer was taunting them—and how the finale was yet to come, destined to be even more spectacular than the chess game.

Despite all of John's accusations about Sherlock's lack of compassion, Sherlock seemed to understand John's agitation, centered around something John himself wasn't ready to admit, because he set down his wire cutters and stood, grabbing his coat off of the stand by the door and slipping his arms through the dark sleeves. "I'm heading to the police station," he said, pocketing the bomb collar. A single red wire stuck out from Sherlock's front pocket; John wanted to reach over and tuck it down. "Don't wait up."

Then, like a burst of wind, he ghosted out of the flat, the door slamming behind him as a sort of harsh farewell. John sank down in the armchair, letting the silence engulf him; faintly, he heard the patter of footsteps down the stairs, a few murmured words, and then the building vibrated slightly as the front door banged open and closed.

John stared at his computer, contemplating his awaiting paperwork with dull eyes, before climbing out of the chair with a surge of energy and shuffling to his bedroom. Fighting with Sherlock had taken something out of him, and the worst part was, he didn't even know why he had done it. They had almost had a good thing—Sherlock _smiling_, John only helping to fuel that smile, on the road to detailing the killer's next move—and John had chosen _that_ moment to question Sherlock's character?

"Stupid," John lamented, flopping facedown on his bed and heaving a sigh into his pillow. He wasn't sure which guilt was hitting him now: the residual shame from at St. Bart's or the regret of having pushed away the only real pseudo-friend John had. As John's stomach twisted even more at the thought of Sherlock slowly taking that spot in John's heart, he knew it was the latter, which made it all the more worse. He couldn't lose anybody else.

Anybody else.

Anybody else.

"Stupid," John moaned again, this time with a hitch in his throat. He sucked in a rattling breath, fighting the memories, suppressing them with everything he had, but still they came like the waves of a tsunami crashing upon the coast, obliterating everything standing in their way, blinding John until all he saw was red.

Red.

Red.

_Red._

And then black when he couldn't handle it any longer, smothering him with soft, fleshy hands, pushing him so far down the colors faded into nothing, evening John's breathing and sending him into a pitch sea uninterrupted by waves or any of the troubles of past, present, or future.

* * *

><p>"John!"<p>

John heard the call through a fog, as if cotton balls had been stuffed in his ears. He raised his head out of the bliss of sleep for a brief moment, testing the waters, before sinking back under again with a small sigh.

"John, wake up!"

Something shook his shoulder, jostling John. It felt like marbles were rolling around in his head, clicking up against receptors and nerves; he groaned in protest.

"John, you're _bleeding_."

The words registered somewhere in John's brain; a part of him instantly awoke, scrambling desperately in an effort to search for the injury. The sleeping half proved too strong, pushing the other one down forcefully and reducing the brief paranoia to mild concern, expressed by a grunt of acknowledgement.

Footsteps away. Paused. Footsteps returning. Then, cold so intense it sent John spiraling, muscles jerking, eyes flashing open, pupils dilating, breath all coming out in one burst. He sputtered, watery rivulets streaking down his cheeks and trickling over his eyelashes, rolling over slightly and levering himself into a sitting position. "What the hell?" he protested, running a hand over his face in an effort to alleviate some of the water. He only managed to smear it.

"Your _arms_."

John blinked up at the speaker, and it took a few moments for the blurry figure standing in front of him to resolve into Sherlock, sans coat, his black curls slick and sticking to his forehead. "My arms?" He raised his arms in front of him, blinking once or twice, and gasped.

Long scratch marks ran the length of the soft, pale underside of John's forearms, angry and red and jagged, dried blood running over the sides and fresh blood collecting near the cuts. John's hands started to tremble; when he raised them carefully, feeling his arms sting and burn, he saw chunks of skin stuck underneath his fingernails, and bile rose to the back of his throat.

"I did this?" he stammered, horrified by the mangling of his arms yet unable to look away, his eyes fixed and out of focus. "I don't- when—?"

And then, somewhere in the confusion, John remembered. His jaw fell slack, his whole body going numb, the pain of the scratches fading under realization. "Oh my God," he whispered, the images coming back to him with startling clarity. His mother, in the kitchen, stir-fry still sizzling on the stove. His father, halfway down the stairs, a black pistol lying near the railing. Both lying in pools of blood, their eyes open and lifeless like the very soul of them had been sucked out, leaving them dry shells of themselves. John's scream, ripping through the windows and doors and walls, the building pressure behind his eyes, the jolt when he fell to his knees beside his father, shaking his broad shoulders and sobbing. The lights flashing through the house, followed by a knock at the door John barely heard over the pounding of his own heart, the gun clenched tightly in his hands. Warm, unfamiliar hands against his cold, sweat-soaked skin and voices telling him he couldn't stay, offering condolences in flat, obligatory tones. Faces, faces, hands, voices, colors, lights, people, suits, more faces, all passing in front of John, all bouncing off of him like butterflies against glass. And then, the worst part: when he became so numb the pain just faded away, leaving him a shell, too, filled with what could pass as himself but really fell subject to the agony lying dormant inside.

Mostly dormant.

Somehow, Sherlock had bandages now, gauze and medical tape and antiseptic, and he set quickly to work on John's arms while John watched, his horror numbing the pain of the rubbing alcohol. Through it all, Sherlock remained silent; he wrapped the bandages around John's arm deftly, long fingers securing the ends with tape, the only sounds being the faint whistling of air passing between lips and the rustling of gauze.

"We'll have to toss the bed sheets."

John started at Sherlock's voice, blinking at the other boy for a moment before glancing over his shoulder. Two crimson puddles, fully soaked into the comforter, sheets, and most likely mattress, filled John's vision, and he quickly looked away, casting his eyes downward so he didn't have to look at Sherlock.

"I'm sorry."

John thought for a moment that he had said the words, apologizing for the part of him Sherlock had had to witness, the side that didn't have anything under control. It took him a beat to realize that Sherlock, his head turned towards the door, curls beginning to dry and fall loosely around his ears again, had said them, and a beat more to absorb them. By then, Sherlock had gone, leaving John with his hands palms-up, his head spinning, and his arms burning.

John stared at the bandages, already tainted with the first spots of blood soaking through, and swallowed. "I'm sorry, too."


	9. Chapter 9

Lestrade called around noon when John was in the middle of finishing his paperwork and studiously ignoring Sherlock, who was sitting across the room with a cup of herbal tea. The ringing echoed through the flat, penetrating the quiet for the first time in hours, and a few rings went by before John wordlessly stood, setting his laptop down on the floor, and flipped Sherlock's cell phone open. "Hello?"

"John." Lestrade seemed shocked to hear his voice. "Are you at the hospital? Is Sherlock there with you?"

John's stomach twisted. "No, I took the day off. We're in the flat."

"Both of you come down to Scotland Yard as quickly as possible." Lestrade sounded nervous, and John forgot his own situation for a moment.

"What's wrong?" he asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sherlock stand, and then the other boy was at his side, motioning for the phone.

John put the phone on speaker just as Lestrade spoke. "Bomb squad found something inside that collar Sherlock brought down yesterday—which by the way, could have gotten him _arrested_ if I hadn't called in a favor with the chief. Bloody idiot."

"What did they find?" Sherlock cut in, seemingly oblivious to Lestrade's cutting remark.

A pause. "A clue," Lestrade said finally, his voice dry. "You like those sorts of things, right?"

"We'll be there," John said before Sherlock could respond. "Thanks, Lestrade."

"Greg," Lestrade corrected. "Sherlock just calls me by my last name because he can never remember my first."

"Greg," John repeated, the name sounding strange rolling off his tongue. "Okay."

Lestrade hung up first, leaving static in his wake, and John handed the phone off to Sherlock, who took it without so much as a second glance at John's wrists. John supposed he should be grateful that Sherlock wasn't making a big deal out of the whole thing; that was what he wanted, right? For Sherlock to stay apart from the maelstrom of bad memories and pitiful moments of weakness that John had accidently given him a window into the previous night?

John rubbed the bandages, feeling the soft fibers against the tips of his fingers, and sighed. He didn't know what he wanted.

"Come on," Sherlock said, brushing past John, his trench coat flapping around his legs. "I assume you're driving?"

John nodded, grabbing his keys off of the side table by the armchair. Then, because if Sherlock could just distance himself from everything, so could John: "How hard is it to remember 'Greg'?"

Sherlock sighed in exasperation. "His name isn't Greg. It's… Graham or Gavin or Geoff—something utterly ridiculous like that."

And, despite everything, John couldn't help but smile.

On the drive down to Scotland Yard, John contemplated turning on the radio, but he decided against it. Sherlock didn't seem like the type to listen to music. Instead, he settled with concentrating on the roadway and trying to ignore the awkward silence between the two of them. Had it always been awkward, or was it just because last night's events hung unspoken in the air like a dark, heavy cloud?

When John pulled into the parking lot at Scotland Yard, he parked the car and, after turning it off, glanced at Sherlock. Then, without giving himself a chance to turn back, he said, "I want you to forget about it."

Sherlock didn't need to ask what _it_ was; he did, however, give John a curious look. "John, I—"

"No." John looked down at the steering wheel, saw his hands clenching the fake leather with white knuckles, and blew out a breath. "I know what I want. Just forget about everything, okay? This… this isn't something I can… I just need space to deal with myself."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." If John hadn't known better, he would have thought that Sherlock actually sounded _concerned_ for him. "You're not stupid, John; you know that it'll only get worse. You need help—"

"Well, it's not your decision," John spat, turning and meeting Sherlock's gaze with eyes full of fiery resistance. "So _piss off._" Then, before he could regret his words, John stormed out of the car and took long strides to the entrance of Scotland Yard, pushing through the door without a glance behind him to see if Sherlock had followed him. It wasn't until a secretary pointed him in the direction of Lestrade's office and he had traveled halfway there that he noticed the trembling of his hands or the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Lestrade stood as John entered his office. "Good, you're both here."

"Just get to it, Lestrade," Sherlock sighed from behind John.

"All right, fine." Lestrade frowned at Sherlock. "No need to be any surlier than usual." He picked up a plastic bag from his desk and extended it towards John; before he could grab it, a pale hand reached past him and plucked the bag out of Lestrade's hand.

John studied Lestrade's messy desk, keeping his eyes cast away from Sherlock. He didn't feel _mad_ at Sherlock, exactly, at least not in the traditional way one feels anger towards another. It was more fear: fear of weakness, fear of closeness, fear of loss. Maybe John was mad at himself, hating his fear. Hating himself.

"John."

Reluctantly, John looked away from the desk and directed his gaze to Sherlock; the other boy extended the contents of the plastic bag—a creased piece of paper—to John. "Read this."

John took the paper from Sherlock and held it out in front of him. His breath caught in his throat before he even read the first word. "Is this…?" John didn't have to ask; the words scrawled across the page were just the right shade of crimson, the ends of each letter dripping down towards the bottom. He wanted to throw the paper on the ground; instead, he forced himself to read it, his eyes darting quickly across the page. By the time he finished, the shaking of his hands had increased dramatically; not able to maintain his grip on the paper anymore, he let it flutter to the ground, staring at it with eyes wide with horror. "No." He ran his hands through his hair, sinking down in the plush black armchair sitting in the corner. "This can't be happening."

Lestrade leaned forward over his desk. "So you know her?"

John swallowed sharply, running the words over and over in his mind. _Mary Morstan will die unless John Watson comes alone to the place where it all began before the clock strikes midnight on the 14__th__._

_Die._

"She's my… she was my…" John couldn't get the words out. He kept seeing the paper, the bloody letters inscribed across it, and he couldn't help the horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that the blood belonged to her. He glanced up at Sherlock, not entirely sure what he was looking for in the other boy but knowing that he needed _something_. Otherwise, he wasn't sure if he could keep himself from falling apart all over again.

Sherlock took over for John without missing a beat. "Mary and John had a relationship before John left Scotland to live in London." It didn't matter that John had never told Sherlock a word about his old life; Sherlock spun the story out of clues and deductions, using each little part of John he'd collected through the past couple of weeks. "It was only a matter of time before the killer connected his victims to John's personal life."

"Why now?" Lestrade asked, and John would have thought that they were ignoring him, but he knew better. They were giving him the space he needed to breathe, to process. "What was the purpose of the first four victims?"

Sherlock began to pace, and the steady rhythm of his shoes on the ground helped to calm John's racing heart. "I originally thought of it as a game. The killer gives us a clue and a time, and we have to figure out the puzzle before the countdown hits zero. However, this is… an irregularity in the pattern. Every victim before had been in his or her mid-thirties with a near-insignificant desk job at a company that John's parents had ties to. They had all been left in places where they would be easily discovered. They all had a message of some sort carved onto their chests, the most obvious cause of death being blood loss from these carvings. The first three carvings acted as a summoning; the fourth one led us to the chess game." Sherlock pressed his fingers on either side of his nose, pressing up towards his eyes. "Why begin a game and suddenly change the rules?"

"Stop!" John demanded, slamming his hand on Lestrade's desk. His forearm throbbed with the impact, but he didn't care. His emotions were running high and wild; he couldn't even think past the screaming voice in his head. "This isn't a game, Sherlock!" Maybe he could have dealt before with the reality of a psychotic killer offing people using the parameters of some sort of pattern that made sense inside his twisted mind, but not now. Not when Mary's life was on the line.

"John—" Lestrade began, but Sherlock interrupted him.

"I understand that you care about Mary." Sherlock had a hardness to his eyes suddenly, like something John had said had struck a nerve deep inside of him and the only thing he could think to do was shut himself away from the world. "But you have to put aside your personal connections and _focus._ Otherwise, people will die." He said it like a fact, like the words shouldn't be weighted with so many emotions, like the word _die_ was without connotation.

John wanted to scream at Sherlock. He wanted to expel all his terror, all of his fear and anger and frustration, in one mighty argument with the boy who didn't seem to care about anything at all, but before the words could escape his lips, he saw out of the corner of his eye the bandages on his wrists. They stuck out slightly from the under the sleeves of his light spring jacket, the white a stark contrast against the dark tan, and suddenly, John only felt guilt. It weighed at him, making him tired beyond belief, and he knew he sounded worn-down and pathetic when he said, "I can't. It may seem like a weakness to you, but to me, it's a sign that I'm human. I can't lose that part of myself any more than I can lose Mary." He swallowed, trying not to get emotional, and glanced down at the bandages again. Sherlock followed his gaze, watching John as he fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket, before John spoke again, not taking his eyes off of his wrists. "That's why I'm going to go."

"No!" Sherlock and Lestrade exclaimed at the same time. Lestrade shot a surprised glance at Sherlock as Sherlock continued, "That's what the killer wants. We should wait and think this through."

John shook his head. "There's no time. As soon as the clock strikes midnight tonight, she's… she's gone." He couldn't say dead. He cared too much to say dead. Gone was so much easier. It was like a promise, like a 'see you later' or a 'until next time', instead of a finality. "Besides, it's not your choice. It's mine."

"But you're making the wrong choice," Sherlock pressed, and John had never seen him so animated, not even when confronted with a dead body or mid-deduction. "There has to be something." He grabbed the letter off of the floor and scanned it with quick, darting eyes, as if searching for a hidden meaning among the letters. "Some sort of clue or deception." His rich blue eyes shot up to meet John's. "Where is 'the place where it all began'?"

It took John a beat to realize that Sherlock was actually _asking_ him a question, expecting a response from John that the other boy didn't yet know. John felt his hope crumble when he admitted, "I don't know."

"Well, then you very well can't go rushing off to rescue your girlfriend," Lestrade pointed out.

_She's not my girlfriend_, a small voice inside John's head whispered. _Not anymore._ He didn't speak his thoughts, however. Instead, he tried to think. The clue had to have been designed for him, a reference to something that only he would know. He heard Sherlock tell him to think, felt the other boy's heavy eyes boring into him, but the outside world was lost as John delved into his memories, careful to skirt around the ones he couldn't bear to face.

It wasn't until John and Sherlock returned home to the flat and Sherlock retreated into his room that it finally came to John, like a spark had finally caught and ignited a roaring fire from where there had once only been darkness and cold. He sat up in his armchair, abandoning his laptop, and grabbed his car keys off of the side table. He paused outside Sherlock's room, his flatmate's last words to him ringing in his ears—"Don't do anything foolish, John. Come to me once you figure out where Mary is and we can come up with a plan."—before biting his lip and moving past, over to the door. He knew Sherlock excelled at many things—certainly more than John could ever hope to—and that maybe he could come up with some grand scheme and save the day, but John couldn't take the risk that the killer could come out on top and he could lose Mary. A swell of fear overtook John for a moment, and he paused with one hand on the doorknob, the other reaching unconsciously towards the bandages on his wrist. He bit his lip harder, small spikes of pain shooting through his nerves, and turned the doorknob.

"I thought we agreed that you wouldn't go alone."

John hadn't heard the other boy sneak up behind him, but instead of startling, he simply closed his eyes and sighed. "_You_ agreed to that."

Sherlock huffed out a breath. "Details."

John turned to face Sherlock. The other boy stood just over a foot away from John, his arms at his sides, his eyes hard. John ran his hands through his hair and crossed the flat, stopping just before the armchair and whipping around to face Sherlock again. "I need to go, Sherlock." The waning light outside cast dark shadows across Sherlock's face, so John might've imagined the concern that flashed across Sherlock's face, making his eyebrows turn downwards for a moment before the stoicism set in again. "I can't ask you to understand. I can just ask you to let me go."

"It's not logical. There are too many loose variables."

John pressed his thumbs to his eyes and took a few steps closer to Sherlock. "Just… I don't know what I'll do if I lose her."

Sherlock paused. Then, he took a step closer to John, close enough that John could feel the proximity as prickles against his skin. He tilted his head upwards slightly to see Sherlock's eyes peering down at him, and then John knew the concern of earlier had been real because here it was again, along with something else John couldn't quite place, filling Sherlock's eyes to the brim. "You can't live your entire life afraid of loss. You'll only end up hurt." His tone of voice betrayed his eyes; it remained flat and factual, but still, John couldn't help but feel the words resonate deep inside of him. It almost made him turn back, listen to Sherlock's words, and cling to the small hope that they could save Mary without fulfilling the killer's request.

Almost.

John's hands, which had wandered slowly behind his back and searched the side table while Sherlock had spoken, closed around a thick, rectangular object. "I'm sorry," he whispered, really meaning it, and Sherlock barely had time to register his words before John swung the book around with his right hand and slammed it into the side of Sherlock's head, just shy of his temple. A brief look of surprise flashed across Sherlock's face before he dropped like a stone, crumpling to the ground with only the slightest of exhalations. John let the book tumble to the ground next to his friend—the friend he'd just knocked out, lord help him—his stomach clenching with heavy guilt. "I'm so, so sorry," he repeated, the apology meeting empty air. Then, when he couldn't look at Sherlock's limp body any longer, he averted his eyes and left the flat, the car keys jingling softly as he shut the door behind him and locked it from the outside. Even if Sherlock woke and discovered where John was headed, he would have to find another way out of the flat. John didn't doubt that the other boy could, but at the very least, eliminating the easy way out would delay Sherlock enough for John to do what he had to.

With a final glance in the direction of the flat, John descended the stairs and pushed out of the building into the cooling evening air. The streets had quieted down, but still, people bustled to and fro, tourists with cameras aimed at buildings and street signs like they were great treasures and Londoners heading home from long jobs. Taxis whizzed past, some ignoring the hands waving from the sidewalks, some pulling off to the side; cars weaved in between them, blurs of color and streaks of bright headlights piercing the descending night. John took it all in like it would be his last time seeing it without even thinking about his actions, nodding to passersby and giving out smiles that he only slightly meant.

London was beautiful. He never noticed until now, but when he did, he paused with a hand on the handle of his car door and simply stared. It should have felt like this the first moment John rolled into town—the awe, the admiration, the desire to stay forever—but he had been too consumed by worry and sorrow to notice that he had left one form of beauty for another one entirely, of a different breed but still the same in some ways. Where John's childhood home had rolling hills, quaint farmhouses, and blue sky that stretched for miles and miles until the land cut it off cleanly at the horizon, London held brilliant colors and shimmering lights and a sort of energy that came from the movement of millions of people, millions of hearts beating, millions of lungs breathing the same air. John realized with a jolt that he would miss London; despite the conditions that had forced him here, he felt at ease in the heart of England in a way he'd never thought he could achieve outside of Scotland.

Feeling his earlier terror replaced by a serene sort of calm, John climbed into his car and twisted the keys in the ignition. The car purred underneath him; it only took him a minute to slip out into the flow of traffic, getting up to speed and settling in between a taxi and a black convertible. He glanced down at the clock on his dashboard; the time read 7:06, and blew out a relieved breath.

Good. He had plenty of time.


	10. Chapter 10

_Some kid in a Metallica tee shirt bumps John as his class files off of the school bus, but he's nice enough to give John an apologetic smile before moving by his friends. John tries to return the smile, but the boy is gone before he can; with a resigned sigh, John moves with the rest of the group out of the main street down a small, cramped alley. The stench of rotten food and mold hits his nostrils, and he resists the urge to gag. After all, he is only a visitor; the people who live here have to deal with the smell their whole lives._

_"Keep up!" his teacher, Mrs. Barrymore, calls from the front of the group. She's forgone her normal stilettos for tennis shoes, but the dress remains, swishing around the tops of her knees as she takes quick steps forward. "If time waits for no one, then neither shall I!"_

_A few kids snicker; John simply walks faster. Secretly, he enjoys Mrs. Barrymore's quirky quotes; whenever he tells his mother them, she smiles in that way that gives her crow's feet around her eyes and shows just a small sliver of teeth._

_"John! Wait up!"_

_John rolls his eyes but slows just enough for his friend to catch up to him, his breaths coming in labored bursts, his large chest heaving with effort. "Maybe we should add 'running' to the list of New Year's resolutions for this year, Mike," he jokes, only half-kidding. When Mike's girlfriend broke it off with him two months ago, he spiraled into the sweet arms of junk food, and nothing John said could prevent the 25 pounds he'd gained as a result._

_"Shut up," Mike grumbles, but John can tell that his friend is secretly pleased that John cares. "Just because you have a high metabolism—"_

_"Don't start with that—"_

_"Boys," a female voice chides, and a delicate hand falls on John's shoulder. "Can't we go an hour without arguing?"_

_John suppresses a protest, instead flashing the owner of the hand a wide smile. "Hello, Irene."_

_Irene Adler, arguably the hottest—and most frightening—girl in school. Somehow, she gravitated towards John and Mike, something that John couldn't care less about but flustered Mike to no end. Now, Mike's cheeks burn a bright crimson, and he stammers out a greeting of his own. "You look nice today," he adds on at the end, not necessarily with the intention of flirting—God, Mike is too much a pansy for a girl like Irene, all sharp edges and feral smiles—but because it's true. Irene never looks less than stunning._

_Irene flashes Mike one of her trademark smirks, and John could swear his friend visibly gulps. "Thanks, Stanford."_

_"It's Stamford," Mike mutters under his breath, out of habit more than anything else. He's long-since accepted the nickname._

_As the three of them follow their class into a rundown building peppered with bright graffiti and looking severely at risk of collapsing, Irene turns her attention to John, her eyes flashing in the way they do when she holds a piece of valuable knowledge. "You're never going to believe what I heard on the bus ride here, Johnny."_

_John wants to take in the building, the people sitting braced against the walls and watching the kids with tired curiosity, their faces unshaven and their clothes mismatched and ratty. Instead, he indulges Irene and asks, "What?"_

_Irene leans in closer, her breath tickling John's ear, but John doesn't feel the least bit uncomfortable. He's spent enough time with her to grow accustomed to the way her eyes seem to pick him apart, to look past it to the soft-hearted, almost gentle girl that lies within. Of course, as with most people, the truth remains hidden beneath many layers of protection, and Irene's no different. "You know Mary Morstan?"_

_John sucks in a breath. Mary Morstan. How could he not know her? She always seemed to hover in the corner of his vision, a blond pixie-cut head among the hundreds that bobbed through the hallways at his school, sneaking into his thoughts when he least expected it. She'd transferred to his district at the end of the 6__th__ grade, but it took him at least two years to notice her, another year to _really_ notice her. Now, junior year, his heartbeat picks up at the simple mentioning of her name, and he's not sure whether to feel embarrassed or giddy._

_Irene doesn't wait for John to answer, continuing, "Word on the street is she's broken up with that tool Moriarty. I heard he cheated on her with some college guy named Sebastian."_

_"What?" John chokes on the word, but before he can question Irene further, Mrs. Barrymore's voice cuts through the conversations._

_"Listen up everyone!" She waves a hand at a dark-skinned man standing next to her; his treads tumble over his shoulders, rivaling the length of Mrs. Barrymore's, and he nods at us before she even introduces him. "This is Rafael—he'll be helping to guide us during our time here."_

_Rafael speaks in a heavy cockney accent, and he divides up responsibilities quickly and efficiently. John only half-listens; the rest of his attention wanders to Mary. He wonders how long a person has to wait after ending a relationship before the start of a new one transitions from rebound to real. Weeks? Months? John's never had a girlfriend before, so he feels like he's stumbling forward in the dark, grasping for a light switch that he has a very slim chance of finding._

_Someone jabs John sharply in the side, and Irene's voice floats to his ears. "Come back to earth. We're making groups."_

_All around them, kids gravitate towards their friends, standing closer than normal to assert their ownership. Quickly, the group separates and divides until only a few kids are left wandering, glancing around with creased foreheads and terrified eyes. John glances at his group of three—space for one more—and reaches out towards a bespectacled boy, but before he can propose his offer to the boy, a face fills his vision, a soft hand touching his briefly before it moves to his upper arm. Then, a voice so sweet it could be honey or liquid sugar, asks, "Do you mind if I join?" and John doesn't know what to say, suddenly, or even how to speak._

_Irene speaks for him. "Actually, we—"_

_"Of course not," John blurts, shooting Irene a pressing glare. "Please."_

_Mary gives John a smile that makes his knees just a bit weaker. "Thanks, John." She takes her hand off of his arm, moving to stand with his group, and John realizes that the books are horribly wrong. Mary isn't fire and sparks and heat that, when absent, leave John shivering and longing for contact._

_She's ice._

John looked up at the building with the memory still tainting his vision, and he swore he could still feel Mary's hand on his arm, burning a freezing path through shirt and muscle and bone. Despite knowing that it wasn't, he couldn't help but shiver; then, he blamed it on the wind brushing coolly over his skin and causing goosebumps to rise all along his arms and on the back of his neck.

Though he'd never admit it, the dark had always scared him just a little. It was just a feeling, like something he couldn't quite reach no matter how far he stretched, sitting and stewing in the back of his mind. It made his breathing just a bit shorter, his heartbeat a few thumps faster, his hands less steady and coated with a thin layer of nervous sweat. He rubbed them on the legs of his pants, blinking to fully eradicate the memory of high school, and then moved forward, turning the door handle with surprising ease.

Inside, the darkness grew claustrophobic, heavy with the smell of must and decay. John let the door swing shut behind him, the thud resonating through the blackness, and then silence crept in again on padded feet. John swallowed, trying not to be nervous—nearly impossible, of course; it felt like he was approaching his own execution—and moved blindly through the building, trying to remember the layout from his junior year field trip. Of course, then, the homeless had resided within the relatively safe walls of the building; now, it only housed rats and cockroaches. Unsafe living conditions, the newspaper had said, but John knew better. It was money; it was always money.

John's foot hit an object on the ground and he stumbled, barely stopping himself from tumbling to the ground. His heartbeat skyrocketed, and he froze, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths in a futile effort to calm himself. Then, he couldn't help himself; he started talking, his words bouncing faintly off the walls and echoing back to him. It started with words of encouragement, stuff that sounded silly—beyond silly, borderline hysterical—but then it dropped to pleas and promises, all uttered in a calm, flat, factual tone that should have scared John but had rather the opposite effect. He reopened his eyes and took a few more hesitant steps forward, stretching out his hands on instinct to search for something, anything in the dark—

_Click._

John registered everything in slow motion. First, he saw the tall lamp, shining downwards and making a large circle of pale white light on the dirty stone floor. Then the slightly illuminated ground in front of him, fading away slowly back into darkness the further he looked from the light.

The wooden chair, slightly crooked.

The rope, curling around fair wrists and socked ankles like coiling snakes.

The burlap sack covering from the shoulders up.

Black pumps with small studs decorating the tips. John had given her those shoes for Christmas his senior year. For some reason, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the shoes, even as he felt himself move forward a few steps, his hands beginning to shake. "Mary?"

No answer.

John closed the remaining gap between himself and the chair, reaching a tentative hand towards the burlap sack. He could barely think straight, much less wonder the types of things Sherlock would have brought up. Who turned on the light? Why would he just leave his bargaining chip sitting out in the open? What was the point of bringing John out here just to leave him with Mary?

Nothing occurred to John except for the girl slumped in front of him, hands tethered to the wooden armrests, ankles to the legs of the chair. He grasped the burlap sack in one hand and worked it gently off of her head, watching with a thumping heart and clenched stomach as static electricity caused short blonde hair to stick to the burlap briefly before releasing it to fall against a smooth forehead. Then, he said her name again, placing a hand on her shoulder and shaking it gently. Her head bobbed back and forth, enough for John to get a flash of her face.

John's hands were at her cheeks and lifting her head so quickly he didn't even realize he'd done it until he was dropping his hands and backing away quickly, his heart jumping up into his throat and pounding an irregular rhythm there. He couldn't get her face out of his mind: her jaw, hanging slack like a puppet whose strings have been cut; her eyes, staring into nothing, empty of anything even remotely human; her cheeks, cold against his hands.

His eyes traced downwards, coming to rest on her stomach. In his blind eagerness earlier, he'd overlooked the faint redness spreading across her green sweater, but now he couldn't tear his eyes away. Placing one fist to his mouth, John used his other hand to pinch the bottom edge of the sweater in between his index finger and thumb and lift it just enough to see the carnage underneath.

A question, carved into pale skin: _Where is Mary Morstan?_

Then, hands grabbed John, binding his wrists with something cold and rough and covering John's head with a scratchy burlap sack. "John Watson," a smooth, tenor voice murmured in his ear while he struggled fruitlessly against the strong grip from behind. "My last pawn."

"What's going on?" John demanded, kicking out with his feet and meeting empty air. "Where's Mary?" Because the poor woman slumped in the chair, wearing Mary's clothing and bearing Mary's name across her stomach, couldn't be Mary—not with her dark brown eyes, more like barren land than rolling ocean.

"That, my dear Watson," the voice explained, beginning to guide John away from the light, back into the depths of the dark unknown, "is what I need you to help me find out."

* * *

><p>Sherlock awoke with a pounding headache, lying sprawled across the living room floor. It took him a millisecond to remember why, another second to sit up with a pounding of his heart rivaling the one in his skull. "John," he said, the word echoing around the empty flat, and then he was on his feet, ignoring the throbbing in his temple. Light filtered in through the curtains; judging by the angle, Sherlock had been out for the entire night and awoken again just before noon.<p>

And John still wasn't back.

In a flash, Sherlock had his phone up to his ear, the dial tone replaced by high-pitched ringing. He only had to wait two rings before Lestrade picked up with a nervous, "Sherlock. Please tell me you're calling with good news."

Sherlock couldn't even find it in him to make a snarky remark. "Is John with you?" He knew he sounded desperate, but he couldn't help it.

A pause. "I thought you were watching him."

Sherlock began to pace. "He escaped."

"He _what?_"

Bitterly, Sherlock snapped, "Really, Lestrade, keep up."

"How?"

In an attempt to save his pride, Sherlock said, "I hardly think that matters right now. What we need to know is _where he is._"

Lestrade swore into the phone. "I'll put a team on it, but Sherlock, we're swamped. Missing persons cases are cropping up all over the place, and I've already got people set on standby in case this psychopath decides to show up again. Believe me, I want to see John safe, but I just don't know what else I can do. Do you know where he might have gone?"

Sherlock's pacing quickened until he finally stopped and settled with looking out the window onto the street below, mindlessly analyzing the pedestrians as they passed in an effort to put himself at ease. "If I did, do you really think that I would be calling you?"

Another pause, this one longer; Sherlock could practically taste Lestrade's discontent. "Don't worry, Sherlock," he said finally, his voice soft despite the turmoil Sherlock could hear below the surface. "We'll find him." Not _I'm sure he's fine_ or _Maybe he just needed some space._ They both knew that if either of those things were true, Sherlock wouldn't have called.

Sherlock, as he always did when faced with emotions he deemed too strong to bear, resorted to facts and reason when he responded, "Yes. Alive or dead is the question." Then, he hung up and dropped the phone, hearing it clack heavily against the floor, before returning to the window.

So many people in London. Sherlock had always looked at the city as a conglomeration of fools, those who lived their lives ignorant of the darkness that lay beneath the shiny exterior of lights and sound and grandiosity. They lived in one world; he lived in another, one that once you entered, sealed you in like a prison cell without any hope of escaping. Of course, Sherlock had always considered his world a higher state of being; a life of ignorance, to him, was like a life devoid of meaning or worth.

John should have stayed out of his world.

Sherlock shook the thought away as quickly as it had come, not because it wasn't true, but because if he opened that door, that would let in a slew of emotions that Sherlock had sworn never to feel again. Life without caring was so much easier; it left no room for error, taking away that part of a person that would act rashly due to attachment.

Turning away from the window, Sherlock picked his phone back up from the floor and crossed the flat, stopping next to John's armchair. John's laptop still sat open, the screen black, on the seat cushion, humming softly; Sherlock stared at it for a moment before grabbing it, sitting down on the chair and waking it from its sleep.

Looking through John's email should have felt invasive and wrong, but Sherlock had no qualms about doing it, starting from John's most recent messages and working backwards. In order to know something only John would know, Sherlock had to know as much about John as he could, and though he would never admit it aloud, he couldn't know everything about a person simply by looking. Yes, most people wore their lives on their bodies, in their postures, in their manners and actions, and John was no exception. The moment he'd walked into Sherlock's flat, Sherlock had known that something inside of him was missing or broken; it had only taken him a few seconds to realize what. It had been written all over Ms. Hudson's face, mirrored faintly on John's; Sherlock knew from the start that John was slowly falling apart, breaking at the seams. Still, it had shocked Sherlock like a jolt of electricity when he came home from the police station to find John lying in a pool of his own blood.

Sherlock couldn't think about that night without remembering the terror that had seized his heart with cold hands, so he focused on the computer, clicking on another email and scanning it intently.

The moment of clarity wasn't grand or spectacular like in the movies. Sherlock didn't gasp or reread the email or experience a mental click as all the facts aligned. Instead, he left the flat, moving just a tad faster than his normal quick-paced walk, and made short work of hailing a cab. It wasn't until he was en route that Sherlock reflected on the email.

John had really done a terrific job of deleting all emails from his former friends. A quick glance through John's trash bin had revealed hoards of messages from the same people, all saying almost the same things: _We miss you, John. When are you coming back? You know we all support you._ (Sherlock had taken the liberty of permanently deleting all the aforementioned emails with a scowl.) However, an email from Mike Stamford remained in John's inbox, received just before John had gone off by himself to rescue Mary like a bloody heroic fool. It began with the same drivel as all the others: _Hey, John. I know you probably stopped reading these, but I just want you to know that we all miss you back home. London can't hold a candle to Haddington, I'm sure, but I understand that you need time away._ Blah blah blah—it had gone on and on, Sherlock skimming it with contempt written blatantly across his face until a part near the end. _Although, do you remember that school field trip in out junior year to that homeless community?_ it read. _The beginning of the end—not in a cynical way, though. Like the end of you as a sorry pansy pining after a beautiful girl. How the tables have turned. She misses you, John. She still hangs around us, but it's not the same without you._ The message drawled on, but Sherlock had stopped reading. It had suddenly been so clear to him; the place where it all began, the beginning of the end.

"Where are we headed today?" the cabby asked, his voice light and chipper.

Sherlock didn't hesitate. "398 Taylor Street. Quickly."

The cabbie gave Sherlock an odd look over his shoulder. "That place's been closed for years. I hear it's on the verge of condemnation. Why on earth would you want to go there?"

"Police business."

The cabbie gave Sherlock an incredulous look but didn't pry further. He focused on the road, and Sherlock looked out the side window onto the streets of London.

_The beginning of the end._


	11. Chapter 11

Sherlock supposed he should have expected the police to be there, red and blue lights flashing against the walls of the alleys and yellow tape cordoning off the crumbling brick building. What he didn't expect was that Lestrade's 'team' would consist of nearly 25 people, some clustered around the cop cars, some rushing in and out of the building.

Exiting the cab and handing the cab driver a twenty, Sherlock took quick strides to the crime scene, sending Sally and Anderson a contempt glance as he passed them. Anderson called, "Where's your boyfriend, Sherlock? Got tired of you already?"

Sherlock grit his teeth and lengthened his strides, their laughter fading away as he pushed past the officers stationed at the doorway and stepped into the building, his eyes quickly adjusting to the darker interior.

The large, gaping room was empty save a small cluster of officers in the middle, Lestrade among them. Sherlock caught Lestrade's eye halfway there, and Lestrade quickly excused himself before approaching Sherlock. "What're you doing here?" Lestrade asked before he had even reached Sherlock, his brow furrowed. "I didn't call you."

Sherlock made a point of never acting confused. For the most part, he never had to worry about it—he left the confusion to others, sometimes causing it himself. This time, however, he couldn't help but say, "Of course I came. This is John's last known location." He thought he successfully kept the slight tint of bewilderment out of his voice—why would Lestrade be here if not for John?

Lestrade swore. "That explains a lot." He ran a hand over his face, pursing his lips. "Come on." He turned and retreated back to the group, Sherlock following him. The crowd parted wordlessly for the two of them, officers fixing Sherlock with various degrees of curious and contempt looks. He ignored them, all of his attention focused on the center of the huddle.

It only took him a fraction of a second to deduce that the woman sitting slumped in a chair in front of him was not Mary Morstan. Her bone structure was that of a woman in her mid-thirties, not upper teens, and the message carved across her chest in bloody letters—_Where is Mary Morstan?_—struck Sherlock in the literal sense rather than the spiritual. He knelt down next to the woman, examining her hands, ankles, face, clothing, and such, and then glanced over his shoulder at Lestrade. "She's in her mid-thirties—around 34 or 35—and lives alone. However, this is strange." Grabbing a pair of rubber gloves from a nearby box, Sherlock took the woman's hand and turned it palm-up. "Callouses along the flesh just under the fingers and on the thumb. This woman didn't sit behind a desk—she worked manually, most likely on a farm."

Lestrade frowned. "There are no farms in London."

Sherlock sighed. "_Obviously._" He prepared to lecture Lestrade on the nature of transportation; however, he was interrupted when another officer pushed through the group and extended a slim file to Lestrade.

"Missing Persons found a match," he explained, watching as Lestrade opened the file and scanned the documents inside. "Sadie Perkins, age 34."

Lestrade looked at the officer questioningly. "She's not from London."

"No, sir. The report states that she was visiting family just outside of London when she disappeared. Originally, she's from—"

"Scotland." Sherlock let go of the woman's hand and stood, peeling the gloves off in one smooth motion and discarding them on the floor.

The officer clearly knew whom Sherlock was because he didn't even sound remotely surprised when he said, "Exactly. Scotland."

Lestrade, however, couldn't help himself. "How could you _possibly_ have known that?"

"John is from Scotland." Sherlock grabbed Lestrade's arm and dragged him away from the rest of the group, ignoring Lestrade's protest and the curious glances of the rest of the officers. It wasn't until he put a good distance between himself and the others—enough that he wouldn't be overheard—that he turned on Lestrade and asked, "Where is John? Have you seen him? He must have been here when you arrived."

"You know as well as I do that he's not here."

Sherlock put his palms together and pressed the tips of his fingers in between his eyes, pressing hard enough for it to hurt. "He was. He came here, he found her, and then what?"

He knew. Sherlock knew, deep down, what had happened to John. It was written all over the factory: in the fibers of burlap left on the woman's skin from an absent bag; in the scuffed dirt and dust near the foot of the chair neatly outlining John's shoe size; in the fingerprints being lifted from the woman's skin, ones Sherlock already knew would match John's exactly. But he couldn't know. If he knew, that would make it real, and if it were real, then Sherlock couldn't help but feel it. And if he felt it…

_No._ John wasn't dead. Not yet. If John still breathed, then Sherlock didn't have to face anything.

"He came, he found her, and then what?" Sherlock repeated, his voice leveling, flattening. "And then he was taken."

Lestrade looked stricken. "What?"

"When our killer wants something, what does he do?" Sherlock met Lestrade's wide, horrified eyes with his own, and somehow, Lestrade's own falling apart let him keep himself together. "He takes it."

Lestrade struggled for words for a moment. "The message," he finally managed. "It asks for Mary, not John. If the killer had Mary, why say that? Why take John? Why leave another woman tied to a chair in some abandoned building?"

Sherlock thought. The note, threatening Mary's life to entice John out into the open; the message, asking for the location of Mary, demanding information from whomever found it; John, lured into the building by the threatening of one person and then taken for the sake of that same person.

A lure himself.

"I believe," Sherlock said, turning to glance at the dead woman in the chair once more, "that we have been played."

* * *

><p><em>Mary runs into John's arms, sobbing. She blubbers words that he can't understand, gripping the backs of his shoulders tightly and nestling her face into the crook of his neck. He holds her to him, rubbing soothing circles on her back, feeling the sheer fabric of her shirt smooth against his fingertips. "Hey," he murmurs, half-comforting, half-terrified. "What happened?"<em>

_"I can't," Mary gasps, her sobs wracking her body and making her words choke in her throat. "I can't do this anymore, John."_

_"Can't do what?" John continues to rub circles. He's not sure who he's calming anymore—himself or Mary. "What's wrong?"_

_Suddenly, Mary pulls back and meet's John's eyes, hers full of an emotion so intense John can't place it, can't even comprehend it. "I love you," she says, and _these_ words are strong and sure. "I'm in love with you, John."_

_Even though she's said it times before, this feels different to John, like the words never meant anything from anyone until this moment. His fingers stop mid-circle, his breaths stilling in his chest, and for the longest moment, he simply looks at Mary. Despite her trembling that he can still feel underneath his hands, she stands determined, like nothing before this has ever mattered like this and nothing after it ever will. Her eyes, so often comparable to oceans and rolling tides, now glisten like ice underneath a pale sun, rock-hard and unyielding, yet soft deep down. As each moment passes, they fracture more and more, strength giving way for whatever supposed weakness lies underneath, and John breaks with them._

_"I love you too," he says, pulling Mary into a tight hug. "Of course I do."_

_He'll be the one to keep her together._

John awoke with a gasp, Mary's name on his lips. For a horrifying moment, he experienced complete disorientation, struggling against the ropes binding his wrists and ankles, feeling the burlap sack around his head and tied at the neck like a plastic bag, suffocating him bit by bit. Then, his heart racing, he sank back and abandoned the struggle. Really, what good would it do? People only made daring escapes in the movies.

Even though he'd just woken, he suddenly felt exhausted, like the very life force had been sucked out from him. His fingers curled gently around the edges of something hard—chair arms—and he let his head fall forward slightly. Everything seemed dark inside the burlap sack, like a world of shadows and ink, but John knew that light still existed, tickling just beyond his reach.

_Where is Mary Morstan?_

John had never felt such regret in his entire life. There had been a time in sixth grade when he'd accidentally spilt an entire bottle of purple tie-dye on a girl's new white dress and no amount of apologies had been able to squelch her tears; the next years, she hadn't even looked his way. Up until now, he'd thought that that was the worst it could get. Now, he knew that the world was a much crueler, more complex place, where a bit of split tie-dye would hardly stain the intricate fabric of reality. Regret stretched to bigger and better lengths; dye turned to blood, dresses to shaking hands, girls to boys with full black curls and startled blue eyes, careless hands to heavy books colliding with fragile flesh.

_Click. Click. Click._

John's shoulders tensed, his fingers twitching around the chair's arms slightly. _Footsteps._ His regret fell away in place of apprehension mixed with a fair amount of pure terror; no matter how much he tried, John was not brave. Not like Sherlock.

"This isn't some pointless game, you know."

John would be lying if he said he didn't start at the words; they cut through the silence like shards of glass, piercing John's skin and making him wince with each inflection. Still, somehow, the voice managed to alleviate some of John's anxiety, like now that he knew of the killer's presence, at least nothing could surprise him.

Then, a cold hand settled on John's shoulder, and he stiffened. "I'm not like all those other serial killers you and your friend chase. I have a purpose to everything that I do. Just like you have a purpose here."

John bit his tongue and remained silent. There was a pause; John felt slight exhalations tickle the slight bit of bare skin between the sack and his shirt and suppressed a shiver. Then, the killer sighed and continued, "As it is, I also do not like wasted time." Then, with a tug, darkness gave way to pale light, stinging John's eyes for a moment before they adjusted. As he blinked away his temporary blindness, he felt a dread begin to build in his stomach. When he finally saw the face of the killer—of his kidnapper—whom would he see? Would he look like the kind of man capable of killing five people, or would he appear kind, without the sharp angles and harsh lines John imagined of a murderer?

Then, he slipped into John's view, a pale blur amassing into a man, and John felt something he never would have imagined: recognition.

"Well, John Watson?" the white king asked, folding his hands behind his back. "Do you understand?"

* * *

><p>"Do you understand?" Sherlock asked, fixing Lestrade with a pressing glance. "It was all a trick. The killer claimed that he had Mary in order to get John, and then he left that note as a sort of mockery, rubbing our own stupidity in our faces!"<p>

Lestrade had begun to pace a while back. All the other officers had left the building, but Sherlock and Lestrade still remained, Sherlock explaining the situation over and over to Lestrade and Lestrade puzzling through it every time and coming up with the same result that never seemed to satisfy him.

"But why does he need Mary?" Lestrade asked for the ninth time, moving his hands in coordination with his thoughts. "Why go through so much just to get the ex-girlfriend of the man whose attention he's captured all this time?"

The worst part was that Sherlock didn't know. He had tried _everything_, reviewing all his facts about John and even investigating the entire crime scene thoroughly. There hadn't been many times in his life when he hadn't had even the slightest inkling about something; in fact, only one other than this one. That had been years ago, though, and since then Sherlock had gotten much better, replacing emotions with logic, filling the empty space with facts and deductions and honing his skills almost habitually. Now, with John…

Sherlock gave Lestrade the answer he'd given every time. "It just doesn't make sense." Then, after some thought, he added, "He's not acting like any serial killer I've seen before. They all have patterns—some sort of distinguishing feature, like a way of killing or a type of victim. I thought that maybe the messages were his thing, or maybe the countdown, but that seems to be just a signature of sorts."

Lestrade glanced sideways at Sherlock. "Crime organization?"

Sherlock scoffed. "Likely. Crime is mostly organized lately, some of it a little too well for my liking."

"Odd, though." Lestrade folded his arms. "Crime bosses don't normally let their underlings go on personal vendettas."

"And that still doesn't explain the abrupt shift in attention from John to Mary." As soon as the words left Sherlock's mouth, an idea sparked, igniting the fires of discovery in his mind. "Except there wasn't."

"What?" Lestrade asked, confused.

"Getting our attention was only half of the plan," Sherlock explained excitedly, feeling the facts begin to roll off of his tongue smoothly. "Getting _hers_ was the other half."

"What?" Lestrade repeated, his forehead creasing. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't you see?" Sherlock exclaimed, backing up slightly and starting off towards the door. "It's always been about her!"

"Where are you going?" Lestrade called after Sherlock as he headed towards the door, his dark blue trench coat flapping against his ankles.

Sherlock didn't look back. "The question says it all, Lestrade! 'Where is Mary Morstan?'"

"What?" Lestrade shouted, but Sherlock was already gone.


End file.
